


These Elaborate Lives

by Ademas



Series: Empath [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Language, F/M, Reader-Insert, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2019-08-29 14:44:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 39,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16745989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ademas/pseuds/Ademas
Summary: Prequel to More Than a Feeling, but can be read first or on its own.While working a case in St. Louis, Sam and Dean meet Y/N. Initially just a local contact, she soon becomes an indispensable part of their lives—especially to Sam.Spans seasons 2-5.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! To those of you who have been reading More Than a Feeling and found your way here, thanks! I hope this lives up to whatever expectations you may have. To those of you who are new, welcome!
> 
> This begins in Season 2, about two weeks after the events of "Heart." However, I've shifted the timeline just a little bit; instead of taking place in March, as "Heart" did, this takes place in January. I wanted more room between the start of this and the season finale in May, so I took some liberties.

* * *

 

**St. Louis, Missouri**

The Olin library at Washington University in St. Louis looked, to Dean, not unlike most other libraries he and Sam had ever found themselves in. In other words, he didn’t get what had Sam practically vibrating with excitement over it. Then again, that was typical geek-boy-wonder Sam, and after what had happened in San Francisco two weeks ago, Dean was just happy Sam was starting to get back to his normal self.

“So, who are we talking to again?” he asked as they passed through the glass doors. They were investigating a resurgence of ghost sightings—and one disappearance—around the infamous Lemp brewery, and Sam had set up a meeting with a local folklore expert, or something.

Sam didn’t answer, but strode to the circulation desk and greeted the clearly hungover coed who was snapping bubblegum and staring at the computer screen. “Hi,” he said. “I’m Sam Harrison. My brother and I have an appointment with…” he glanced at the post-it he’d dug out of his pocket. “Y/N Y/L/N.”

She barely glanced up and pointed to the stairs. “Research librarians are on the third floor. Make a left when you get up there.”

“Thanks.”

Dean followed Sam the way she’d directed. “If I’d known all college chicks were so pleasant, I would’ve quit hunting and gone with you to Stanford.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “If you’d been accepted, sure.”

Dean made a noise of feigned offense.

The third-floor desk was manned by a tousle-haired kid in glasses. He was ignoring the textbook in front of him to talk to the woman leaning on the counter. She straightened and turned around as they approached.

“You must be Sam and Dean,” she said, and held out her hand. “I’m Y/N. Come on back and I’ll show you what I’ve dug up for you so far.”

They each shook her hand and followed her through the stacks. She was decidedly not the crotchety tweed-wearing cliché Dean had come to expect. Y/N couldn’t have been older than he was, wearing jeans and an overlarge sweater, long hair swept up into a kind of loose twist. He didn’t miss the quick scan Sam gave her, either, and gave his brother a play nudge and waggled his eyebrows.

“Stop it,” Sam hissed. Dean chuckled.

The office was small but cheery, crammed full of bookshelves and knick-knacks, a few family photos. There was a plant on the window that had seen better days; it was wilting in the winter rays that peeked through the blinds. Despite the room’s clutter, the desk itself was neat, folders and papers stacked in orderly piles, and Y/N indicated for them to sit as she placed a stack of books in front of them, then sat down herself.

“So, your email said you were looking into local urban legends. So I’m guessing you want to know specifically about the Lemp brewery haunting.”

Sam blinked. “What gave it away?”

“That’s what _everyone_ wants to know about.”

“Do you get a lot of people researching this stuff?”

She shrugged. “Kind of. One of the English professors here has his students do a research project on St. Louis folklore, and someone always chooses the Lemp family.”

“And you’re the resident expert?” Dean wondered.

She snorted. “Ha, no. But after helping so many undergrads with their research, I got pretty interested in it, so I’m working on a Master’s in folklore now. So now they just send all the folklore, mythology, and anthropology people my way by default.”

“What do you do with a degree in folklore?” Dean blurted, and Sam kicked him behind the desk.

But Y/N laughed. “Hell if I know! But I work for the university, so it’s free, and I figured—”

“—why not?” Sam finished for her. She smiled.

“Anyway,” she said, shuffling the papers in front of her. “That’s my excuse. You’re obviously not students, so what brings you here?”

Sam cleared his throat. “My brother and I are writers. We’re actually traveling the country, working on a book about famous U.S. hauntings.”

She raised her eyebrows in genuine interest. “That’s cool,” she said, giving them an appreciative nod. “So, you travel the country chasing ghost stories….have you ever actually seen a ghost?”

She played if off like a joke, just the obvious small talk, but beneath that Dean caught the tones of an honest, eager curiosity. Judging by the startled look on Sam’s face, he had, too.

Just as Dean was beginning to respond with a laugh and a negative, Sam leaned forward, a smirk teasing the corners of his lips. “Actually,” he said. “We’ve seen plenty.”

For a split second her eyes widened and she leaned toward him, but she crossed her arms and sat back in her chair. “You’re kidding.”

Sam grinned. “Yeah.”

She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. “Anyway,” she said, “The Lemp hauntings. Like I said, people are a little obsessed. The Lemps kept getting hit with one tragedy after another…”

She slid an article toward them and launched into a detailed narrative about the cursed Lemp family and the litany of sightings and legends surrounding them. Dean sat back and let Sam do most of the talking, only chiming in when questions occurred to him or something wasn’t quite clear. But he was more focused on the interaction happening in front of him: the way Sam leaned over the desk. The way Y/N did _not_ lean away. The absolutely geekiness sprouting out of both of them. Her casual glances. Sam’s smile, which was coming out more in this thirty-minute conversation than it had in two weeks.

Sam had been rightfully moping around since Madison, and Dean had let him. He’d submitted to silence in the car, in motels, to a few days of complete lack of anything and then Sam’s total nosedive back into hunting. But he knew Sam was still grieving; he knew it from the distant gazes, the nightmares, the avoidance of anything werewolf or gun related when possible. Dean had been determined the past few days to pull Sam out of it, keep him focused, help him move on...maybe what he needed was one good night with a normal girl.  This one certainly seemed like she might be into him. But despite the looks Dean tried to send his brother, Sam was either really good at ignoring him, or completely uninterested.

An hour later, armed with more information than they really needed (but Dean wasn’t about to cut this beautiful conversation short), and a few scans from some of the library’s texts, Y/N walked them back to the front desk.

“I hope that was helpful,” she said.

“It was great,” Sam said, grinning. “Thanks a lot.”

“My pleasure,” she said. “I actually dug up a few books I can use for my own research, so it helped me out, too.”

_Ask for her number, Sam_ , Dean thought, but his brother was oblivious. He shook her hand and turned to leave.

Dean figured he’d have to take matters into his own hands. “Actually,” he said. “Could we get your card, or something? In case we have any more questions.”

She laughed. “Sure.” She reached over the counter and grabbed a card from a stand holding an assortment of them, then took a pen and scrawled a number on the back. “That’s my university email and phone on the front, which is the best way to reach me, but that’s my personal cell number just in case.”

“Awesome.”

Once they were back in the car, Dean passed the card to Sam. “Here you go, lover boy.”

Sam almost looked offended. “Dean, really?”

“What? You two were makin’ eyes at each other the whole time we were in there. Don’t tell me you weren’t feeling it.”

Sam looked down at the card in his hand and sighed. “I can’t.”

“Aw, come on, Sammy—”

“I said I can’t!” he snapped, and Dean almost recoiled at the venom in his voice. Sam swallowed and blinked, then turned away. He crumpled the card and threw it on the floor of the Impala. “Just let it go, alright?”

Dean didn’t say anything for the rest of the drive to the motel. Sam clearly wasn’t receptive to the idea of moving on, and Dean wasn’t going to force it. So they focused on the job, and he tried to ignore the obvious fact that Sam, despite his bravado, wasn’t okay.

* * *

“Dude, give it a break. _Easy Rider_ is on.”

They were holed up in a motel just outside of Columbus. The case in St. Louis had been an uncomplicated haunting, the first relatively straightforward hunt they’d had in awhile. The most difficult part had been finding the real information among all of the urban legend. Sam had pegged it as a Tulpa from the beginning, but it was hardly that—just a family of vengeful spirits who’d been waiting too long for someone to put them out of their misery.

They’d wrapped the job in three days and driven straight to the next one, a nest of vamps that had been a pain in the ass and taken another three days to clear out, and were now getting some Dean-mandated R&R. Except Sam was determined to keep researching. Since losing Madison, he’d been even more set on finding the yellow-eyed demon, as if by avenging one lover’s death, he’d absolve himself of the loss of the other’s.

Sam didn’t even look up, just kept scrolling through webpages, his face washed bright from the screen. “You’ve seen that like two hundred times.”

“And it just keeps getting better!” He was stretched out on the bed closest to the door, shoes kicked off and beer in hand. “Come on, Sam. Live a little.”

Sam gave a heavy sigh and shut the laptop. “Fine,” he said. “But—”

His phone lit up and buzzed loudly from the table. He picked it up and squinted at the caller ID.

“Who is it?” Dean asked from across the room.

“Dunno,” Sam replied. He answered. “This is Sam.”

Sam’s brows furrowed, then recognition dawned on his features. “Oh, Y/N, hey, how are you?”

Dean raised his eyebrows. It had been almost a week since their meeting, and having been shut down so insistently by Sam, Dean had put her completely out of his mind. He was just as surprised as Sam to hear from her.

“Yeah, sure. What do you need to know?”

The serious tone in Sam’s voice stopped Dean halfway to waggling his eyebrows at his brother. He turned down the TV and mouthed _What’s up?,_ but Sam shook his head, listening intently. A strange look crossed his face, something between concern and curiosity. It was a look Sam wore a lot when they were working a case, when he’d caught on to some tidbit a victim had mentioned and was coaxing more details out of them. Dean sat up.

“Is this just about research?”

A pause, then Sam straightened in his chair, his frame rigid. Dean instinctively threw his legs over the side of the bed, ready to jump to his feet. “Are you still there!?”

Her response eased some of the tension in Sam’s shoulders, but he was far from relaxed. “Okay. Stay where you are. We’re a few states away, but we can be there in the morning.”

Dean was perched on the edge of the bed, following Sam with his eyes, trying to piece together the situation. “It’s okay, it’s...kinda what we do. Just stay out of the house, and make sure anyone else does, too. If you text me the address, we can meet you there tomorrow. Say...nine?”

Sam switched the phone to his other ear. “Yeah, no problem. See you tomorrow.”

He hung up the phone and turned to Dean.

“That was Y/N, from the library. Her place is haunted.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“Wish I was,” Sam said. “She just wanted to know if we had any tips, but—”

“But we’re the real Ghostbusters, right.” He grinned as Sam rolled his eyes. “Well, at least she’s safe. No one else in the house?”

“Just her,” Sam said.

“Hey, you know what that means—” he started, but a look from Sam silenced him. “Okay. Look, it’ll take six hours to get there. We should try to get some sleep.”

* * *

Y/N lived on a residential street less than five miles from the library. It was an older neighborhood whose large, brick houses had been converted into two unit townhouses. They parked outside of Y/N’s just before nine a.m. the next morning. As soon as they got out, the door of a silver Civic opened, and she stepped out and approached them.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey yourself,” Dean said, opening the Impala’s trunk. Y/N’s eyes widened when she saw the arsenal.

“I guess you guys aren’t writers.”

“Not writers,” Sam confirmed, tacking on a sheepish laugh. “We uh, well…”

“Don’t tell me you’re ghost hunters.”

The brothers exchanged a look. “Yeah, basically,” Sam said with a shrug. He was watching her closely for the usual signs of disbelief, doubts of their sanity, frustration...but she just crossed her arms. “That’s why you called us, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know why I called you,” she admitted. “I just didn’t know who else would believe me.”

“So, you wanna show us what’s up?” Dean said, shutting the trunk and tossing a bag over his shoulder.

She led them through the front door, then up a narrow staircase which opened into a spacious living room. She stood aside for them to pass through. Dean took the sawed-off from the bag and passed it to Sam, who checked the barrel for rounds and then snapped it shut.

“Salt rounds,” he explained. “Salt repels spirits.”

“That’s what a lot of folklore says...What do you do, just pack it into a shotgun shell?”

“Pretty much,” he said, passing her a crowbar from Dean. “Hold that, just in case.” She stared at it like she wasn’t sure what to do with it, then turned her attention back to them. She was studying them carefully, both inquisitive and wary, like they were potentially dangerous research subjects.

The whine of the EMF pulled Sam out of this thoughts. “Yahtzee,” Dean said, moving forward in the house.

Sam followed him through the combination living and dining room and into the kitchen. A box of pasta was toppled over on the counter, rotini noodles scattered on the floor beside a cast iron skillet. A pot of water sat on the stove.

“I kinda left in a hurry,” Y/N said, standing in the doorway.

“This is where you saw it?” Sam asked, eyes scanning the room. The EMF was at full power, droning unceasingly, and his skin was itching in anticipation, expecting a spirit to show at at any second.

“Yeah.” He noticed she wasn’t coming in. “Right by the stove. I was getting the skillet and I stood up and it was right there.”

“What did it look like?”

She thought about it. “I didn’t get a good look before it disappeared. I think it was wearing a suit.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Do you guys mind if I go back outside? Not to be a wuss, but I’m a little spooked.”

Sam felt a stab of guilt for even bringing her up with them. “Of course not.”

“We probably have all we need here, anyway,” Dean said, but she’d already turned around the corner and out of their line of sight. A few moments later, they heard her scream.

They almost knocked into each other dashing out of the kitchen. They rounded the corner into the living room just in time to see the spirit _(tall, male, suit, middle-aged,_ Sam catalogued) sweep toward Y/N. Sam had raised the shotgun to fire when Y/N swung the crowbar through the ghost and it dissipated with a howl.

She stood frozen, arms twisted behind her like she’d just hit a homerun, and turned to look at them as if to say, _See? That’s the ghost_ . _I’m not crazy,_ and then dropped the crowbar on the floor and went down the stairs.

“Dude,” Dean said, bending to pick up the crowbar. “She’s kind of a badass.”

When they emerged into the yard, weapons hidden away in the duffel bag, she was leaning against her car, watching the house, shoulders hunched around her ears. She was a little pale, Sam thought.  He stopped in front of her as Dean went to put the gear back in the Impala. “So, you saw the ghost,” she said. “Now what?”

“We research, figure out who he is, find out where he’s buried, and then salt and burn his bones.”

“You make it sound so simple.”

“It should be.” She had such an honest curiosity about the whole thing that it surprised him. “You’re taking this really well.”

“Maybe I’m in shock,” she reasoned. Then she shrugged. “Honestly? I always sort of half-believed in ghosts. Not that I’m happy I’m right, but…”

Dean came back from the Impala. “You’ve got a place to stay for a few days?” he asked. “Just in case this takes a little longer.”

She nodded, then pushed off from the car. “You guys want help with research? It’s kind of what I do.”

She gave Sam a playful look when she said it, echoing his words from the night before, and it warmed him unexpectedly. “We don’t usually have people volunteering to help with this stuff,” he said.

“I’m curious,” she explained. “And it’s my house, so I have some ownership in this.”

Sam wanted to protest, didn’t want some innocent civilian getting hurt on his watch, knew they could handle the whole case on their own, but Dean had other ideas. “Sure,” he said. “But breakfast, first.”

They drove separately, Sam and Dean following Y/N as she led them to what she claimed was “One of the best breakfast joints in the city.”

“I like her,” Dean said. “She’s got spunk.”

Sam was silent.

“What’s up with you?”

He shook his head. “It’s just weird. She’s a librarian we got set up with to figure out the Lemp case, and then a week later she’s got a haunting and she thinks to call us? Kind of weird, don’t you think?”

“Meh,” Dean said. “What isn’t weird with us? Sometimes a spade is just a spade, Sammy. And she’s a cute spade.”

Sam rolled his eyes.

* * *

 

Y/N sat across from them at Courtesy Diner, which looked about as classic diner as you could get in 2007, eating an omelette with a side of fruit that was closer to Sam’s usual fare than the pancakes Dean was devouring. Sam observed her over the top of his coffee mug as he took a drink, watching the way she ate around the melon but went right for the strawberries. She caught his gaze and he cleared his throat. “So,” he said. “The ghost showed up last night?”

She finished chewing and swallowed. “That’s the first time I saw it. But the night before, the office light kept turning on and off on its own. I guess it could’ve been there then, but I left and stayed with a friend. Freaked me out.”

“Did you notice anything else strange before that?” Dean said.

“Strange like…?”

“Cold spots, stuff out of place, other light issues...stuff like that.”

“Maybe? It was cold, but when my landlord got someone out to check the heater, nothing was wrong with it. Could a ghost explain that?”

“It could. When did that start?” Sam asked.

“A day or two after I met with you guys...so just under a week ago.”

They exchanged a glance.

“What, does that mean anything?”

“Not really,” Sam said. “But it’s just weird.”

She stared at him, deadpan. “Weirder than you two being ghostbusters? Or ghosts being real?”

“Good point,” Sam conceded. “Anyway, it shouldn’t take much more than looking into the history of your place, the property it’s on, to figure out who’s haunting it and take care of him.”

“The public library might be a better resource for that,” Y/N said.

“Or, I can just find it online,” Sam said.

She raised her eyebrows. “Hacking?”

He grinned. “Only for good,” he said.

They went to the library anyway, and Y/N pulled files related to housing in the area dating back one hundred years. While she and Dean pored over those, Sam worked away at the laptop, digging through government databases and residential records, then cross-referencing them with death certificates and obituaries.

He was working more slowly than he normally would, and he knew it, stealing glances over the screen at Y/N, her hair twisted behind her head, a pencil tapping between her fingers as she bent over development plots and old newsprint. She puzzled him; people didn’t often end up working cases with them, even just for research. She hadn’t spent much time in denial about the spirit, either, just reached out to the only people she thought could help her. Maybe she thought she owed them.

“Think this is something?” she said, sliding a document across the table to him. Dean had gone to “stretch his legs”—they were three hours in and nearing his threshold for inactivity.

Sam scanned it. The townhouse had been rented from 1962-1965 by a James Richings, a bachelor who’d worked at the bottleworks factory. His lease ended when he’d suddenly died at 47 years old.

“Bottleworks…” Sam pondered. “As in the Lemp bottleworks? The brewery?”

She nodded. “I think so. It could be Anheuser, or Schlafly, but the location makes me think Lemp.”

“So it’s possible he was connected to the hauntings there, too.”

She nodded again.

Sam set the paper down and went back to the laptop, searched for news from January 1965 until he found what he was looking for. “Get this—James Richings died by suicide after he was laid off.”

She wrinkled her nose. “In my unit?”

Sam scanned the page again. “No. Jumped off a bridge, apparently.”

“Then why is he still hanging around my place? Why’d he just show up? Is that normal?”

Sam wondered the same thing. It wasn’t unheard of for spirits to only haunt places sporadically, but usually there was something that instigated it. “Whatever it is, we burn the bones, the ghost is gone.”

It only took a few careful searches to find Richings’s gravesite, and by then Dean had returned with three coffees. “Find anything?” he asked.

“Everything,” Y/N said. “No thanks to you.”

Sam snorted, closed his laptop, and stood up. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”

By the time they left the library, it was late afternoon, and they decided to get a room for the night and wait it out until dark before heading to the cemetery. At Y/N’s recommendation, they followed her back to the Moonrise and checked out a room there.  

Dean passed Sam a key card and adjusted the bag on his shoulder. “I say we order some take out and rest up until tonight.”

Sam nodded his agreement, then turned to Y/N as Dean headed off down the hall. “We’ll call you once it’s done. You should be able to go back home tomorrow.”

“Awesome,” she said. “Do you guys need anything else from me?”

“I don’t think so,” Sam said. “It should be pretty cut and dry from here.”

She began walking with him down the hall. She stopped at the stairs. “Well, if you think of something, let me know. I have some reading I need to get done, but I’ll be around.”

It occurred to Sam that, if they bagged this case tonight, this might be the last time he saw her, and his disappointment surprised him. He choked that feeling down as soon as it rose to the surface, and instead shifted his weight toward the direction Dean had gone.

“I will,” was all he said.

* * *

Just after midnight, Sam was shoulders-deep in grave dirt while Dean held the flashlight beam steady and kept watch. They’d just switched off, and Sam let out a sigh of relief when the shovel hit the top of the coffin with a satisfying thud. He tossed the shovel out of the grave, dusted dirt off the lid, and pulled it open. He climbed out, and Dean sprinkled the bones liberally with salt and lighter fluid, then dropped a match into the open coffin.

They stood, keeping watch over the flames and feeling the heat on their faces. “Two salt ‘n burns and one vamp nest in a week,” Dean said. “I could get used to easy cases like this.”

Sam was silent. Where Dean saw easy cases, reminiscent of the “good old days” before demons and physic powers, Sam saw distractions from what they were ultimately after. He didn’t regret saving the people involved. He relished a job well-done, evil put to rest, having something to do other than research and wait, but he was itching to put an end to the chase of the last year and half, to finally get revenge for their mother, their father, for Jess.

Dean must’ve read something of that in his silence, because he said, “You know, it isn’t always gonna be like this for you.”

Sam looked up at him. “What?”

“We put Yellow Eyes to bed, you can do what you want. Go back to school. Settle down. Get a girl.”

Sam narrowed his eyes. Initiating this kind of talk was out-of-character for his brother, and Sam wasn’t clueless enough to think that Dean was pulling it out of his ass. No, he’d been chewing on this for awhile. Sam hadn’t missed the concerned glances, the way Dean had always seemed to be right there when he’d torn awake from a nightmare, how he’d kept them busy, on the move, how he’d ceded to Sam’s suggestions without a fuss the past two weeks. And he hadn’t missed Dean’s movements today, his conveniently leaving Sam with Y/N, finding ways to draw the two of them into conversation together.

Sam let out a heavy sigh. “Maybe someday,” he admitted. The flames were burning low, and he began shoveling dirt back into the grave, dousing the fire. Dean hesitated; Sam thought he’d say more, but he didn’t push it, just picked up the second shovel and helped Sam scoop dirt.

It was almost two a.m. when they made it back to the hotel. Dean called first shower and Sam picked up his phone, debating whether to call Y/N or wait until morning.

He compromised by sending her a text saying that the job was done, and she’d be good to go home the next day. As an afterthought, he wished her good luck on her research.

* * *

 Despite getting to sleep at such a late hour, Sam was awake by eight the next morning while Dean continued snoring. He pulled on a t-shirt and his shoes and went down to breakfast, thinking he’d eat and then bring something up for Dean, who would probably sleep past the time it ended.

He was absorbed in the paper, sipping a cup of coffee when movement across from him caught his eye. He looked up to see Y/N standing at the table with a plate of food in her hand.

“Mind if I sit?”

“Not at all.” He folded the paper and set it aside. She sat down and poured a packet of creamer into her coffee. “You get my message?”

She nodded. “Yeah. Thank you.” She said it with sincerity, meeting his eyes. “I’m not really sure how to repay you guys.”

Sam shook his head. “You don’t have to. Like I said...it’s—”

“—kinda what you do.” She smiled. She was dressed for work, he figured, wearing a dark blouse and a sweater. Her hair was down today, too, cascading around her shoulders. He blinked and turned his attention to his food before she could catch him staring. “So now do you guys just...leave town and find another ghost to hunt?”

“That’s basically it, yeah,” Sam said. “Wherever the job takes us.”

“How exactly does someone get into this kind of job, anyway?”

He let out a breathy laugh. “Uh, it’s kind of a long story.”

She shrugged, took a bite of her yogurt. “Do you like it?”

The question gave him pause. He’d never been asked that before, not directly, and he wasn’t sure what to answer. If he’d been asked growing up, or even a year ago, he would’ve said no, he hated it, he would do anything to get out of it. But now he couldn’t see a reality where he wasn’t hunting with Dean, and he didn’t see the point of imagining one.

But he didn’t say that. What he said was, “It has its moments, I guess.”

She held his gaze longer than felt natural, then broke away to take another bite of food.

He was desperate to fill the silence. “How long have you worked at the library?”

She seemed pleased with the change in subject. “I started last summer,” she said. “Right after I graduated from Ann Arbor.”

“Do you like it?”

“I do,” she said, and smiled. “But it has its moments.”

He smiled back at her. She checked her watch. “Speaking of, my shift starts in half an hour. I should go.” She set her silverware on the plate, but otherwise made no move to leave. “Hey, so, all this ghost stuff...I’m sure it’s not as interesting to you, but I’m doing that degree in folklore, so I wondered if, maybe, I could keep your number, give you guys a call if I have any questions…?”

She was so unsure if the question was even appropriate that Sam had to laugh. At the same time, a sort of chill wrapped its way around his insides, a warning. He felt his defenses go up against this new stranger’s attempt to insert herself, no matter how remotely, into their lives, into the hunting world.

But there was, too, a spark of hope, the chance at a longer connection. “Sure,” he found himself saying.

She grinned. “Thanks, Sam. You probably won’t hear from me too much if at all, but just in case.”

He _wanted_ to hear from her, but he knew it was better if he didn’t, so he kept himself from telling her so.

She stood to leave and he followed suit. “Anyway,” she said. “Thanks again. I don’t know what I would’ve done.”

“It’s nothing,” Sam said. “If you ever need anything, just call.”

“Hopefully it’s just for research, and no more ghosts.”

“Hopefully.”

She turned with a wave, put her dishes in the bin, and was out the door. Sam watched her go until she was beyond his sight, then sat down and finished his own meal before taking a stack of pastries up to the room.

Dean was still asleep when he got back, and he was still asleep an hour before checkout time. Sam had spent most of the morning looking for cases, but nothing had jumped out at him, and for the first time in awhile he wasn’t feeling the itch to move. He was tired. He wanted to settle for a bit, not think about jobs, just take a break.

He went down and reserved the room for another night. If Dean had a problem with it, they could always leave, but he sensed Dean would appreciate a day off, too. Who knew when the last time they’d had one had been.

Dean was sitting up in bed when Sam walked back into the room. He looked blearily at his phone, then at Sam. “I missed breakfast. Why didn’t you wake me up?”

Sam shrugged. “There’s some muffins and stuff on the table.” At that, Dean got out of bed and shuffled to turn on the coffee pot, grabbing a muffin on the way. “Hey, I got the room for another night. I figured we could use a break.”

Dean turned around, giving Sam a look of surprise. “Damn right we could,” he said. “You’ve been dragging us all over for weeks.”

“Yeah, well, I’m tired. What do you wanna do?”

It turned out that what Dean wanted to do was sample as much of St. Louis cuisine as he could. They got lunch on The Hill, ordering toasted ravioli and gooey butter cake and ate until they were stuffed. They caught a showing of _Smokin’ Aces_ after, then went out for beers and pork steaks down the street from the Moonrise. Neither one of them brought up hunting the whole day.

They’d been back in the hotel for a few hours when Dean came out of the bathroom, hair freshly groomed and said, “I’m goin’ out. You coming with me?”

Sam looked up from his spot on the bed, where’d he’d been reading an article from _The New Yorker_. “I’m good.”

“You know,” Dean said. “You could always give Y/N a call.”

Sam looked back to the article. “Come on, Dean.”

“No, you come on. Seriously. She seemed like she was into you. Why not?”

Sam didn’t look at him. “You know why.”

Dean let out a frustrated breath. “You can’t dwell on that forever, Sammy.”

Sam said nothing. With a huff, Dean grabbed his coat and keys and was out the door.

Truth was, Sam did want to call her. But he also knew it was fruitless. He wasn’t okay, didn’t know when or if he would be okay, and he knew there probably wasn’t an end to this where someone didn’t end up bloody. No. Better to forget about it, hope she never called and they all forgot about each other.

Hope was as far as he got.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

It was dark when I finally got home. My shift at the library had gone late, and then I’d joined some classmates for happy hour, which had turned into a happy three hours, and then it was eight p.m. and I was finally walking through the front door.

I couldn’t help feeling a little trepidation as I walked up the stairs to my unit. Sam had assured me that the job was done, and I had no reason to doubt him.  At the same time...the last two occasions I’d been in the house, I’d seen a ghost, and the feeling of fear lingered the way it does after watching a horror movie. Except, of course, this had been real life. 

I paused in the doorway, just surveying the room and screwing up my courage for a few minutes before I went in.

Nothing unordinary happened. I took my bag to my room and dumped the contents into the hamper, changed into a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie and went into the kitchen to forage for something to eat. It was a still a mess from two nights ago. I swept the spilled pasta from the floor and repacked the box into the pantry, poured out the water I’d intended to boil, and put the pan away. 

There was still a pile of books on the dining room table, including the one I’d found a week ago when I’d been helping Sam and Dean research the Lemp haunting. I hadn’t had much of a chance to dig into it, so I grabbed a granola bar and the book and curled up on the couch to take some notes. I turned on some nature documentary on Netflix for some background noise and started reading.

Twenty minutes later, the light from the TV began pulsing, as if there were a bad connection. I froze. After a few seconds, it steadied. I let out a sigh of relief. My breath puffed out in front of me, misting on the air.

The ghost materialized at the room’s threshold, translucent form just slightly blocking my view of the kitchen.

I flung the book from me as I leapt from the couch and bolted for the door. As my hands clutched my keys from their hook, I felt icy pinpricks in my back as the spirit grabbed at me. I lunged forward, yanking the door open, and threw myself down the stairs and out into the yard, stumbling across the frosted lawn.

I ran until I made it across the street to my car and jumped in. For several minutes I just sat there, shivering from fear and adrenaline and cold, until I turned on the engine and cranked the heat. I pulled my feet beneath my thighs for warmth and tried to slow my breathing.

It was several long minutes before my heart rate returned to normal. 

Whatever Sam and Dean had done hadn’t worked. I would’ve been irritated if I hadn’t been so freaked out. I huddled in my car a few minutes longer, waiting for my teeth to stop chattering, and then pulled out onto the road and headed back to the Moonrise Hotel.

I didn’t know Sam and Dean’s room number, or even if they would still be there, so I walked up to the front desk, powerfully self-conscious of the fact that I wasn’t wearing shoes, and asked the clerk.

“I’m sorry, I can’t give out that information.”

Of course. I’d known that, hadn’t I? “Could you just call their room, and tell them Y/N is here? Please? It’s important.”

He grudgingly picked up the phone and dialed the extension. “Hello, Mr. Harrison? There’s someone named Y/N in the lobby who wants to talk to you….Okay, sure….You’re welcome.”

He hung up the phone. “Room 106. Down the hall to the right.”

“Thank you.” I turned and hurried out of the lobby and down the hall. When I reached the room, the door swung open before I could knock. Sam took one look at me, no coat, no shoes, nothing, and stepped aside to let me in. “What happened?”

I stopped just inside the door and looked at him. “The ghost is back.”

He gaped. “ _ What?” _

“It’s back. Or it’s still there. I dunno. It chased me out of my house.”

“Are you okay?” There was urgency in his voice. He reached out instinctively and touched my arm.

“I’m fine. I mean, freaked out, but physically okay.”

He steered me toward the table and I sat down in one of the chairs. He took the one opposite me and closed the laptop that sat between us, moving a half-empty beer bottle out of the way as he pushed it aside. 

“Tell me what happened.”

“I got home after work and everything seemed normal. Then I was sitting on the couch when it just...appeared, again. So I booked it the hell out of there. I didn’t have my phone, so I just drove here. I’m glad you guys didn’t leave town.”

He shook his head, eyes closing with a pained expression. “I’m so sorry. We should’ve double checked before we let you go back in there.”

“Why didn’t it work?”

He ran a hand through his hair. “There’s a couple possible reasons. A part of the body could be left behind, and we need to find that and burn it. Or it could be attached to a particular object.”

“You’re kidding. That could be literally anything.”

“Is there something in your house that’s old, maybe an antique?”

I gaped at him. “The whole building is an antique.”

He gave me a flat look. 

“Okay,” I said, looking around the room as I thought. It was tidy but for some take out boxes on top of the mini fridge and a the duffel bags piled at the foot of each bed. “I’ve got a necklace that belonged to my grandmother?”

“Could be,” Sam mused. “Do you know of any hauntings in your family? Or violent deaths? How long have you had it?”

“I’ve always had it,” I said. “Since I was a kid. And no ghosts as far as I know...we’re pretty normal.”

He was quiet. He shifted in the seat, leaning back in contemplation. “You said the signs started about a week ago, right? Did anything change around that time? Did you do something to the house, or bring anything home?”

“No, I don’t—oh!” I suddenly sat up straight. “The day you came to the library, I took a book home. An old book. Could that be it?”

I saw the spark as he latched onto that idea. “Has it been in there the whole time?”

I nodded. 

“Then that’s probably something,” he said. He stood up, picked up one of the bags and began rifling through it.

“Dean’s out, and he has the car,” he explained. “But it looks like everything from the other day is still in here, so we should be good. You mind driving?”

* * *

I parked in my usual spot in front of the house. I’d left the lights on, and there was no sign whatsoever of anything ominous inside. In the passenger seat, Sam had a hand on the door. “Where’s the book?”

“Somewhere in the living room, probably. I kind of flung it across the room when the ghost showed up.”

“Okay. Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

He grabbed his bag, got out, and trotted up the sidewalk to my door and went in. He stopped just inside and pulled what looked like a crowbar from his bag before heading up the stairs. I waited a minute, anxiously watching the windows, and then turned off the car and followed him. 

I hesitated on the front step. What was I doing? He was a professional. I was terrified. But I was also stupidly curious. I ascended the stairs and peeked into the living room. 

Sam was prowling across the room, crowbar at the ready, eyes scanning this way and that as he searched for the book. Of course, the problem was that there were books  _ everywhere  _ in my apartment: on shelves, piled on tables, even stacked on the floor. And while the majority of them were novels or newer research texts, the one he was looking for wasn’t the only old, ugly volume.

He glanced up when he heard me come in, an expression of annoyance on his face. “What’re you doing? Go back outside.”

“Helping you look,” I said. “Since I know what we’re looking for.”

I stepped into the living room and walked toward where I thought I’d thrown the book. “Y/N, this is dangerous.”

“So it’s good you have backup.” What was I saying? I was useless to him but sounded bolder than I felt. I bent to look under the coffee table. My heart was pounding, but I didn’t want to admit how scared I was. 

“So what do we do when we find the book?”

“Same thing we did with the body—salt and burn it.”

“And that’ll get rid of the ghost?”

“Should. Hey, is this it?”  
  
I straightened and looked. He pulled something from beneath the kitchen table, then held up the book. The moment he did, the ghost flickered into existence, let out a shriek and swept toward Sam. Before Sam could react, he went flying across the room and crashed into the wall, the book dropping from his hands and skidding across the floor. Glass shattered as picture frames fell from the wall.

“Sam!”

I didn’t know what to do. I was frozen between fight and flight. The spirit descended on Sam and I couldn’t move. Suddenly, he shouted, “Y/N! In my bag!”

I snapped out of it and darted to the table where he’d left it. Digging around inside, I found a can of salt and a book of matches. Sam was struggling to break out of the spirit’s grasp ( _ and how can something incorporeal grab someone, anyway?).  _ I went to where the book had landed and doused it in salt, then tossed the can aside and grabbed the matches. But my hands were shaking, and I couldn’t get one to light.

The spirit howled again and turned. I wasn’t sure if it understood what was happening or not, but it rushed toward me, the hole for a mouth on its translucent face wide and wailing. I backed away, and then just as soon as it was there it was gone, wisping away like campfire smoke as Sam cut through it with the iron crowbar. 

His chest was heaving. He let the crowbar fall with a clunk, then he reached out and took the matches from my hand. He used the toe of his boot to kick the book’s cover open, then struck a match. 

The moment he did, a cold wind rushed into the room and blew it out. Sam met my eyes a split second before the spirit appeared and grabbed me to him, struck a second match and dropped it. The book erupted into flame as the ghost howled and swept toward us. Sam turned his back to the ghost and covered me with his body, and I clutched his arm as I felt the heat from the fire at my ankles. I peered around Sam to watch the ghost burn from the floor up until there was nothing there at all.

We remained in that position for several more seconds until the smoke from the burning book reached the smoke detector. The high-pitched wail pierced through us and we broke apart. Sam stamped out the remaining fire, then walked over to the smoke detector, removed it from the wall, and took out the batteries. He walked back to the smoking book, picked it up and took it to the kitchen. I heard a thud followed by water running through the faucet.

I stared down at the ashes and charred remains of pages. Then, moving automatically, walked to the window and opened it, then flicked on the ceiling fan in an attempt to clear the lingering smoke. I glanced around the room. Shards of glass littered the floor, stacks of books had toppled over. I bent to pick one up. Black spots swam into my vision as I was hit with a wave of lightheadedness. I went instead to the couch and sank into it, dropping my head between my knees.

Sam called from the kitchen. “Y/N, do you—”

Quick footsteps, then Sam’s presence in front of me. “Hey. You okay?” A tentative hand fell on my shoulder.

I nodded, not looking up, and heard him walk away, followed by the sounds of cabinet doors opening and closing and again water running in the sink. Then he was back. I felt the couch dip as he sat down. 

I lifted my head. I was cold and clammy, but the dizziness had passed. I wiped a sleeve across my brow and looked at Sam. He held out a glass of water.

“Thanks.” I took a drink. “I’m okay. That was just… a lot. A big adrenaline dump.”

He nodded. He still looked worried, but like he understood. “It’s over now. I promise.”

I believed him. The image of the spirit descending upon us, only to vanish into flame, came back into my mind. I shivered. It would be awhile before this was completely behind me.

Sam must’ve sensed my unease because he was quick to change the subject.  “Do you box?”

The question took me by surprise. “What?”

He nodded to the corner of the living room where a speed bag hung from the ceiling. “Oh. Yeah, I do. But I never use that thing. My ex left it here when I kicked him out and I never bothered to take it down.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“What?”

“There’s a lot to unpack in that statement.”

I snorted. “Sorry. I talk too much when I’ve just been scared out of my mind.”

He laughed. His whole face changed when he laughed, lighting up in a way that warmed up the whole room. “So, why boxing?”

He was trying to distract me, to help me calm down with a strain of normal conversation, but he was looking at me with genuine interest.

I settled back into the cushions. “Brandon—my ex—was an MMA fighter. He convinced me to try a kickboxing class at his gym, and I actually really liked it, so I signed up for a membership and kept going.” I shrugged. “I’ve actually stepped into the ring a few times.”

That seemed to surprise him. “Did you win?”

“Lost the first one. Won the next one. Haven’t done it since.”

“Do you want to?”

“Nah,” I said. “I liked it, but I didn’t love it. I think I just wanted to prove I could do it. But I still like the training. It’s great stress relief.”

“I bet.” He’d leaned back and made himself comfortable. “My dad taught Dean and me to fight.”

“Really?”

He nodded. “He knew we’d need it in this line of work.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that. I had so many questions about Sam’s life that I didn’t know where to start. 

But Sam redirected the topic away from himself. “So, what did Brandon do to get himself kicked out?”

“He hit me.”

Sam straightened. “He  _ what? _ ” 

I blinked. Sam didn’t know me, but the anger in his voice was real. “Just once,” I said. “He had a jealous streak. I was starting to get serious about training for a match, and wanted some more one-on-one coaching. Brandon was a terrible teacher, though, so I started taking lessons from one of the other guys at the gym...which Brandon didn’t really like. Well, he’d had a little to drink one night, made some comment about it, one thing turned into another and we started yelling, I said something that pissed him off and then out of the blue he just hit me.”

“Shit, Y/N, I’m sorry.”

I waved him off. “He regretted it immediately, but I was done. I told him he could leave or I would. He packed his bags, and the next day I went to the gym to cancel my membership. The best part? Once I told them why, the rest of the team rallied and forced  _ him _ out.”

“That’s incredible.”

“That’s most fighters. You’d think they’d be a lot of macho hotheads, but they’re some of the nicest, most down-to-earth people I’ve ever met. Well, mostly.”

“I guess you’d have to have a pretty solid level of control in that sport.”

“Exactly. And when you spend a good part of your week getting the shit kicked out of you and beating the shit out of other people, you get some perspective.”

He nodded slowly, a strange look on his face, like I’d said something that resonated with him, like he wanted me to say more. His gaze was hard to break away from; he was the kind of person who when they looked at you,  _ really _ looked at you.

I shivered, noticing a chill, and remembered the window. I stood up and closed it and then turned off the fan. When I turned around Sam was standing in front of one of my bookshelves, studying the titles.  “You like fantasy, huh?”

“Not so much recently. Those have been favorites most of my life, but I’ve been sticking to historical or realistic stuff lately.”

“Why’s that?”

I shrugged. “It’s hard to find fantasy that isn’t trying to carbon copy something else. And so much of my research is about the fantastic and supernatural, I just wanted something…”

“Normal?” He turned around and looked at me. There was something unreadable in his eyes. Maybe understanding. Maybe regret. 

“You want a drink?” I asked. “Or do you have to go?”

A smile tugged on his lips. “That sounds great.”

He followed me into the kitchen. “How do you feel about hot toddies?”

“I like them. It’s been awhile since I’ve had one.”

I began heating the water and got out the honey and lemon, then opened a cabinet above the stove and pulled out a bottle of whiskey. I set it on the counter and Sam picked it up.

“This is good bourbon,” he said, appreciative.

“There is no point ever drinking shitty bourbon,” I said. 

He grinned. “My brother would agree.”

“Your brother,” I said, pouring water into the mugs and measuring out the whiskey, “is an interesting character. What’s with the car? It’s 2007. Gas isn’t cheap.”

Sam laughed. “Don’t let him hear you say that. It’s his one and only love. That, and pie.”

I added whiskey to the water, then stirred in the lemon juice and honey. I handed a mug to Sam. “Cheers.”

He clicked his glass against mine. “Thanks.”

“Thank  _ you _ ,” I said. “For saving me from a ghost.”

He shrugged. “It’s kind of my job.”

“I have so many questions.”

He took a sip, watching me over the top, then said, “Shoot.”

I turned and walked out of the kitchen and back to the couch, pulling my feet beneath me and draping a blanket over my legs. Sam took a seat on the other end. “Ghosts are real.”

He nodded. “Obviously.”

“Are other things real?”

He drummed his fingers against the side of the mug. “Honestly, the less you know the happier you’ll probably be.”

“That’s the same thing my mother told me when I asked if Santa was real. So you might as well just tell me.”

He nodded. “Basically anything you’ve read about in folklore, seen in movies, heard from legends is probably real to some degree.”

I slowly let that sink in, nodding silently. 

“But the chances of you encountering anything ever again are pretty low. Most people never even see one ghost, much less anything else after that.”

“Except for people in your line of work.”

“Well, yeah.”

“And how does someone get into, uh…”

“Hunting,” he answered. “People do for different reasons.” He stared into his mug, brows drawn together in thought. After several long seconds, he continued. “Something killed our mom when I was a baby, so our dad got into the life to hunt it down. Dean and I were just raised in it.”

I stared at him. “You’ve been doing this since you were kids?”

“More or less. When we were really little, Dad would leave us with other hunters when he went on a case. When Dean got old enough, he’d leave us behind in motel rooms until he got back. Eventually, we both were hunting with him.”

He was trying to keep a neutral tone, but there was bitterness in his voice. I sensed there were layers upon layers to his story, and I wanted to peel them all back, to dig into everything Sam was. 

Instead I asked, “Did you ever find it? The thing that killed your mom?”

He closed his eyes briefly, as if the thought still pained him, then shook his head. “We did, but it got away. We’re still on its trail.”

His arm was stretched across the back of the couch, his fingertips mere inches from where I sat. I reached out and placed my hand on top of his. “And in the meantime, you’re saving damsels like me from other things that go bump in the night.”

I thought he’d laugh, but he didn’t, just looked at me seriously. “You’re not a damsel.”

He said it as if he was just realizing it himself. He had warm, kind eyes that told me he meant it, that he didn’t see me as some other poor girl he’d saved from a monster. He slid his hand from beneath mine just enough that he could lace his fingers with mine and left it there, still on the back of the couch, not making any other movement.

“What about you?” he said. 

It took me a moment to register that he’d spoken, to pull myself from the depths of those eyes. “What about me what?”

“How’d you get into the librarian stuff? The folklore?”

“Oh. Right. Let me tell you, my life is not nearly as interesting as yours.”

“I doubt that,” he said, and damn it, I  _ did _ believe that he was completely interested in my very unspectacular, normal little life.

So I told him. About how I’d lived in St. Louis until college, when I’d gone to Missouri State and majored in English while minoring in Spanish and, for the hell of it, Latin. I hadn’t known what I wanted to do with an English degree, only that I loved the feel and smell and sound of books. I’d graduated early thanks to transfer credit from high school and applied to graduate programs in library science all over the country, eventually landing in Ann Arbor for two long, cold years of research until graduation, when I’d taken the job at WashU and moved back here.

He asked a lot of questions, but they flowed naturally, not forced, an honest and open conversation. He’d helped his dad and Dean work a case near Ann Arbor when he was still in high school, admitted that the college town had appealed to him, that it had been one of the many places he’d begged his dad to let them stay. 

“You never stayed long anywhere, did you?”

“Couldn’t,” he said. “Dad was on a mission. It was motels and cheap apartments for weeks or months at a time.”

I didn’t tell him I thought that was sad; I sensed he wasn’t the type to appreciate pity, so I stayed silent. He let his side of the conversation go, launched into another question about me.

I told him I’d been fascinated with myths and monsters since I was a small child, when I’d snuck into the family room while my older brother watched _Tales from the Crypt_ , which my parents had forbidden me to watch. When my brother finally caught me and realized I had no resulting trauma to anger our parents, he let me watch with him.   
“It didn’t scare you?”

“It delighted me,” I said. “I liked the creepiness. I thought the Crypt Keeper was funny. I knew it wasn’t real—well, at the time I did.”

He shook his head, a sort of sad smile on his face. “Your life is so different from mine. We never would’ve watched that stuff. It hit too close to home.”

I didn’t let him linger in that memory. “I bet you hate Halloween, too.”

“Actually, you’re not wrong.”

I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or not. Sam’s phone buzzed in his pocket, saving me, and he took it out and then typed a message back.

“Your brother?”

“Making sure I’m alive.”

“He worries about you.”

Sam nodded, placing his phone on the coffee table. “With what we do, can you blame him?”

I said I couldn’t. We were silent a moment, and I wondered if this was the point where he said it was late, that he should head back, but he didn’t. We kept talking, the conversation drifting from our lives to our interests in general, to current events, to music and other pop culture tidbits. It got later. At some point, we were both spread out on the couch, leaning against opposite arm rests, our legs stretched side by side across the cushions, until, at some point, we must have both dozed off. 

The incessant vibrating of Sam’s phone against the wooden coffee table didn’t wake me up, but the shifting of the couch as Sam untangled his legs from mine and the blankets as he reached for it did. I felt him get up and rolled over, pointing my toes, happy to stretch out in the space he left behind. 

He walked down the hall to answer and I woke up the rest of the way slowly. Mid-morning light was coming in through the cracks in the blinds and I sat up, shivering as I left the cocoon of blankets and pulled back the curtains, letting it stream through. A flash caught my eye and I turned, noticing the broken glass from the night before, the only remaining evidence that anything abnormal or frightening had happened here. 

I picked up the mugs from the night before, took them to the kitchen, put them in the dishwasher and started a pot of coffee just as Sam appeared in the doorway. “Hey,” he said. 

I turned around. His hair, already scruffy, was sticking up on one side. “Good morning,” I answered. “Coffee?”

He shook his head. “I can’t. Dean’s on his way; he got wind of a case out in California, so we have to get going.”

My heart sank unexpectedly. I knew he’d be leaving, and he had no reason to stay, but I couldn’t help the sting of disappointment. I nodded. I pulled a thermos from the cabinet and filled it with coffee, then pressed it into his hand. “For the road, then.”

He stared at it, then at me. “I don’t know if I’ll get this back to you.”

“Well,” I said, swallowing. “Maybe it’ll give you a reason to come back.”

He didn’t respond, just kept looking at me, those eyes seeming to peer into the depths of my soul. Then, without warning, he dipped his head and kissed me.

It wasn’t aggressive, but it was forceful, like he’d been holding back from doing so all night and finally committed. I gave a small gasp of surprise and he stopped, pulling back just slightly, just to be sure, and I dove back into him, our lips melding together as we stood there, still soft with sleep and with morning breath as we kissed in my kitchen.

He set down the thermos and raised his hands to my face. I touched his chest, feeling him warm and solid beneath my palms, until he finally broke away. He smoothed my hair down. “I’ll come back,” he said. Everything in his eyes told me he didn’t want to have to make that promise, that he’d rather not leave at all. “I just don’t know when.”

I nodded. “You have my number,” I reminded him. “And, you know, I have access to a  _ lot _ of resources. If you and Dean need any help with research, I’m happy to help. I owe you.”

“You don’t owe us anything.”

“Still,” I said. “You need anything…”

He nodded. I walked him to the front door. He put on his coat and threw his bag over his shoulder. “Well,” I said. “It’s been a pleasure, Mr. Harrison.”

Unexpectedly, he laughed.

“What?”

He grinned. “Harrison is an alias,” he said.

My mouth dropped open. Maybe I should’ve felt tricked, but it didn’t feel that way. “You’re kidding. Is your name even Sam?”

“It is,” he said. “But my last name is Winchester. I guess you should probably know that.”

I shook my head, chuckling. “You’re unbelievable.”

He bent down and kissed me again, slower this time, like he was savoring it, until we heard the rumble of Dean’s car as he pulled up in front of the house. He glanced over his shoulder, then back at me. “I’ll call,” he said.

“I hope you do.”

He turned and went down the sidewalk, not looking back once as he got in the car and Dean pulled away from the curb. I watched him go, wondering if it was easier for him, wondering if he kissed all the girls he saved the way he’d kissed me, if he promised a dozen others he’d call. I hoped I’d hear from him, that this wasn’t just one sweet memory to hold onto but, possibly, the beginning of something more, whatever kind of something someone like Sam, someone who had no roots anywhere, who chased ghosts across the country, could offer. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Warning: Here there be smut.

 

**[Y/N 2:31PM]:** Wait. _The_ Tara Benchley?  
 **[Sam 2:31PM]** : You sound like Dean. Don’t tell me you’re a fan of _Boogeyman_ , too.   
**[Y/N 2:32PM]** : lol. Dean and I should really have a beer sometime.  
 **[Y/N 2:33PM]** But no. I mean, it’s a trainwreck, but it’s a fun trainwreck. All of her movies are.  
 **[Sam 2:33PM]** You think you can look into it?  
 **[Y/N 2:34PM]** Of course. I’ll get back to you.  
 **[Sam 2:34PM]** Thanks.

Sam snapped his phone shut and slid it into his pocket just as Dean dropped into the chair beside him, paper plate laden with miniature sandwiches. “That Y/N?”

Sam nodded. “She said she’d see what she could find out.”

Dean made a sound of dissent around the large bite of sandwich in his mouth. Sam made a face. “What?”

Dean swallowed. “I’m pretty sure we can bag this one easy.”

“Doesn’t hurt to ask for help.”

Dean chuckled.

“ _What?”_

“Nothin’,” he said with a grin. “Nothin’.”

* * *

They wrapped the case in LA with minor hiccups. Y/N called with some intel just after they’d unnecessarily burned the bones, but Dean was right—they more or less managed it on their own, as they always had.

They hung around for a few days, leaving the city for the beach. Dean wanted a vacation. Sam wanted to head back East. But there were plenty of cases out West, and they kept picking them up, passing the time until they could find Yellow Eyes again.

With each case they worked he texted Y/N the details and she’d email him or call back with what she could find. Dean gave him shit for it— _“What, you couldn’t have figured that one out?”_ or _“Hell, Sam, even I knew that!”_ —but Sam didn’t care that he was making up excuses to talk to her. As long as he had reason to, he would.

And slowly, the excuses fell away, queries for research turning into questions about her. He found himself checking his phone more often, spending more of his time in the car texting her, calling her almost nightly, even for a few minutes. He told himself she was just a distraction, just a blip of normalcy in his otherwise insane life.

He didn’t know what he was doing, not really. It might’ve been fruitless. He didn’t know if or when he’d be back, didn’t know if there was any point in hoping to—what about this was sustainable? They had a job to do, and Y/N didn’t fit into that.

But there was hope, at least, and he needed that. Even as his mind kept drifting to what Dean had told him about their father’s ultimatum, he pushed it away with thoughts of Y/N, of a different kind of future where he wasn’t a freak, where the demon’s plan was thwarted and he could, maybe, live some semblance of a normal life.

But even as he thought it he battled with the alternative: he’d tried before, and he’d failed. What was to keep the demon from taking Y/N, just as it had taken his mother, had taken Jess?

“What’s wrong with you?”

Sam blinked, shaking himself out of the highway hypnosis he’d slipped into. They were driving through Arizona, finally heading East to do a job in Arkansas. Dean was guiding the Impala through the desert landscape, splitting his attention now between the highway in front of him and his brother.

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit. You’ve been moping since we got in the car. Y/N dump you, or what?”

Sam bristled. He wasn’t in the mood for his brother’s crap, but of course Dean knew what would get a rise out of him. “Are you sure about this job?”

Dean rolled his eyes. “ _Yes_ , Sammy, for the hundredth time. Deacon has it all worked out.”

Sam was quiet. Unconsciously, he checked his phone and then dropped it back into his lap when he had no new messages.

Dean misread his movements, tried to lighten the mood. “You know, Arkansas isn’t too far from St. Louis. We could make a stop.”

Sam nodded. He’d already thought about it. They drove in silence for another five miles, then he said, “Hey, Dean?”

“Yeah?”

Sam drummed his fingers against the door. “What happens when we kill the demon, do you think?”

Dean didn’t answer for several minutes. “I dunno,” he said. “We’ve been doing it so long, I never really thought about _after_.” He rubbed his chin. “But it’s like I said before...if you want out, for real? That might be it.”

Sam didn’t reply. He wasn’t sure if there would be an after, if there’d ever be an end to the nightmare that was their lives. But as his phone lit up with a new text from Y/N, he wondered if it even mattered.

He called her the night before they started the case, hunched against the cold outside the motel room just hours before he and Dean would stage a robbery to get arrested. She answered almost immediately, and he could hear the smile in her voice. “Hey, Sam.”

“Hey. How are you?”

“Good,” she said. “Not bad for a Monday.” She yawned. He imagined her curled on the couch, flipping through channels as she talked to him. “You guys make it to Arkansas?”

“Yeah,” he said. “You won’t hear from me for a few days, so don’t worry.”

“What, me, worry about you?”

He rolled his eyes. “Don’t patronize me.”

She laughed. His spirits lifted. “So what’s the job?”

He explained the plan, laying out the details. She was quiet. “What?”

“It just sounds really sketchy, that’s all.”

“I know. Dean promises Deacon has an escape plan. We’ll be fine.”

“Even you don’t sound convinced.”

“I don’t like it. But I trust my brother.”

“Will you call me after you break out of jail?”

“As soon as I’m sure the cops are off my tail.” He took a deep breath. “There’s another thing.”

“What?” He hated the suspicion in her voice.

“Dean and I have a...pretty hefty criminal record.”

“Oh,” she said, sounding, shockingly, relieved. “I wondered if you were going to bring that up.”

It was Sam’s turn to be surprised. “What?”

“I Googled you,” she said simply. “After you left my apartment.”

Sam was silent. He tightened his grip on the phone, suddenly apprehensive. “And? You didn’t run screaming, obviously.”

“Well, a lot of them made sense, like grave desecration. And I guessed credit card scams have something to do with hunting not bringing in a paycheck. But then there was Milwaukee, and Dean’s arrest here in St. Louis…”

Sam swallowed. “I can explain _both_ of those.”

“You don’t have to,” she said. “I somehow didn’t believe you could do that. So I did the research, I figured it out. And added _Shapeshifter_ to the list of things I hope I never have to encounter for the rest of my life.”

He couldn’t answer. He was floored.

“You still there?”

He cleared his throat. “Yeah. We can talk more about it after this job, if you want.” He looked up as Dean tapped on the window behind him, pointing to his watch. “I have to go. I’ll call you as soon as we’re done with the case.”

“You better,” she teased. “Be safe.”

“Talk to you soon.”

He hung up and went inside, still shaking his head in disbelief. Dean noticed. “What?”

Sam put his phone on the table and began checking his bag. “She knew about Milwaukee.”

It took Dean a minute, but then his eyes widened. “Oh, shit.”

Sam shook his head. “No, she… she didn’t believe it, right? So she did some research and figured out what must’ve really happened. It only came up because I mentioned it, in case whatever goes down tonight puts us back in the media.”

Dean let out a low whistle. “Damn, Sammy, I like this girl. You tell her we’re heading to St. Louis after?”

“No. I wasn’t sure. Anything could happen between now and then. You know that.”

Dean shrugged. He knew as well as Sam that it was just as likely that some emergency would come up that could pull them completely out of the area. He stood and hoisted his bag onto his shoulder. “You ready?”

“To get arrested? No, not really.”

Dean clapped him on the shoulder on his way to the door. “That’s the spirit!”

* * *

I kept an eye on the news the following day, waiting for the story of their arrest. There wasn’t much, thankfully: a short article about the attempted robbery that mentioned their association with the bank in Milwaukee, but beyond that, not much. After that, I waited, wondering how they could possibly take out a ghost while locked behind bars, hoping their escape plan was legitimate. Sam had told me when they’d stage the breakout, and I fell asleep that night in a way I hadn’t since high school: waiting for a phone call from a crush. And that’s what it was, really, with me and Sam. Nothing more and nothing less.

I awoke the following morning when my alarm went off and immediately snatched my phone.

**[Sam 2:47AM]** : We’re out. Ghost taken care of. Call you tomorrow.  
  
I let out a breath I hadn’t known I’d been holding and texted him back.  
  
**[Y/N 7:30AM]:** You were supposed to call me last night! But I’m glad. I’ll talk to you later.

I got ready for work, not expecting to hear from him for awhile. When I reached the library, I saw I had a full schedule of research conferences along with my regular duties. I groaned. I wasn’t in the mood for undergraduate neediness.

But it went by fast, at least, and the hectic schedule kept me from checking my phone every five minutes. I was two hours from the end of my shift when I got an email that someone needed help last-minute with a project on cryptozoology. I rolled my eyes—freshmen were obsessed with bigfoot and the ultimate procrastinators. I was tempted to pretend I hadn’t seen the request, but took pity. I typed out a quick reply that I would dig up some resources if they could meet me in an hour, and got an affirmative back. I sighed, stood up, and went into the stacks.

When I got back to my office, a pile of books in my arms, the door was slightly ajar. I typically left it unlocked, just to make it less of a hassle to get back in just as I was now, but I didn’t remember leaving it open. I bumped the door with my hip and went in, then almost dropped the books in surprise.

A grin spread across my face. “Sam!”

Sam stood from where he’d been reading at my desk, took the books from my arms, set them down, and leaned in and kissed me. He reached behind me and shut the door as I relaxed into his kiss with a sigh. He chuckled against my lips, a low rumble in his throat, then stepped back and smiled. “Hi.”

“What’re you doing here?”

“We were only like five hours out. You didn’t think I’d stop by?”

“I guess I hoped you would. But at work?”

He shrugged. “I didn’t feel like waiting, so I had Dean drop me off here.” He paused, then added with a tinge of worry, “Is this okay?”

I couldn’t stop grinning. I felt like an idiot. I stood on my tiptoes to kiss him again. “This is great,” I said. “But I have a meeting in—” I checked my watch, “—ten minutes, so you need to make yourself scarce until around 4:30.”

“No problem,” he said. “Text me when you’re done.” He picked up the book he’d been reading—my tattered copy of _The Once and Future King_ —and ducked out of the room.

My spontaneous 4:00 appointment dragged forever. The girl was disorganized, completely at a loss of what my role in her research was, and frustrated. It didn’t help that I knew Sam was so close, probably seated in one of the armchairs in some corner of the library, and I couldn’t wait to spend more time with him. Still, by the end of our meeting I thought the student had a solid start at least, and I gave her a couple of the books I’d found, printed a few articles, and sent her on her way.

I sent Sam a text that I was finished, then left the office door open and went to reshelve the rest of the books. When I got back, he was standing in front of the bookshelf, looking at the picture frames.

“Is that your brother?” he asked.

“Yep,” I said. It was a family photo of our parents and us standing on a mountain in the Smokies. “That’s Jason.”

“Are you guys close?”

“Close enough. He lives an hour south of the city, and he and his wife have two kids under three, so we don’t hang out like we used to, but we talk pretty often.”

He nodded then turned to look at me. “When are you off?”

“Five,” I said. “So, soon. I just need to do a few things before I can leave.”

“Don’t let me stop you.” He sat down, this time in one of the guest chairs, and opened the book again. I cleaned some of the day’s clutter off of my desk, then sat down to log conference hours, reply to a few emails, and check my schedule for tomorrow. It was not nearly as loaded as it had been today; there must have been some big deadline tomorrow that had everyone rushing to do research today.

At five, I put the computer to sleep, put on my jacket and gathered my things. “Ready?”

Sam closed the book and placed it back on the shelf. “You know, you can borrow that if you want to,” I told him.

“I’ve read it twice,” he said. “It’s a favorite. I just wanted to pass the time.”

I followed him out of the office and locked it behind us. We passed through the library and out the doors into the crisp spring air. As we walked, he slipped his hand into mine. “So,” I said. “How was jail?”

He gave a halfhearted, breathy laugh. “It’s not something I’d ever do again.”

“I think that’s kind of the point.”

Back at my place, I handed him a beer as I pulled a pot of soup from the fridge and set it on the stove to heat. “I hope you don’t mind leftovers,” I said. “I made this two days ago and there’s still enough for like 3 more meals.”

“You know Dean and I live on gas station burritos and diner food, right?”

I made a face. “Gross.”

He took a drink and leaned against the counter. It had been almost two months since I’d seen him, but he looked comfortable here. “What’s Dean doing, anyway?”

Sam shrugged. “Dunno. Trying to pick up girls, probably.”

“You know, he’s welcome here, too. I don’t imagine you guys get a lot of opportunities for real food…”

“I’ll tell him,” he said, grinning.

We sat down to eat, and he told me about the case in Arkansas. He hadn’t liked it; that was obvious without him having to tell me. He told me, too, more details about what had happened in Milwaukee, and even longer ago, in St. Louis.

“Shapeshifters, damn,” I said. “How can you trust anyone?”

He got a look on his face like a thought occurred to him, but whatever it was he pushed it away. Before I could ask, he stood up, taking his bowl and mine into the kitchen, rinsing them both and placing them in the dishwasher.

“Thanks,” I said. I took the pot off the stove, re-covered it, and put it back in the fridge. “So...how long are you staying?”

A shadow crossed his face, like he hadn’t wanted to think about it, and I regretted asking. But I didn’t want to pretend it wasn’t going to happen, and probably sooner than later. But what did I know? It was only the second time I’d seen him. I didn’t even know what this was, much less whether I should be expecting anything at all.

“I don’t know,” he said. He took a final drink and set his empty bottle on the counter. He crossed the space between us and stopped in front of me. “Do you want me to stay?”

“Yes.”

His hand fell on my shoulder and gently stroked up and down my arm. Then he bent his head and kissed me, gently this time, carefully moving his lips against mine. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, reveling in the closeness of him, wanting to keep him here as long as possible, and deepened the kiss. It had been two months of only his voice and he was here, now, and I didn’t know when he’d leave again. I arched my body against him and opened my mouth to let his tongue in.

He let out a surprised moan and stepped closer. His hands were everywhere; caressing my face, my shoulders, my hips. He dropped his lips to my neck, tongue and teeth dragging against my skin and I let my head fall back against the cabinet.

“Can I touch you?” he muttered, his hands slowly grazing up my side, pausing over my ribs.

“God, yes.”

He chuckled and slipped his hand beneath my shirt to squeeze my breasts, his lips never leaving my neck. I was hot, desire pooling in my core and I could feel him hard and pressing against my leg.

I turned my head and nipped at his ear. “Sam,” I breathed. “I want you.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” he moaned, unconsciously thrusting his length into my thigh. Then he straightened and in a single movement pulled my shirt over my head. I reached behind me and unhooked my bra, shrugged out the straps and dropped it to the floor.

Sam licked his lips, then dropped his head to my chest and sucked a nipple into his mouth. At the same time, his fingers worked at my jeans. Once open, he pushed his fingers against my underwear, feeling the dampness in the cotton and moaned.

“So wet,” he breathed, coming back up to kiss my lips. “Gonna taste you.”

“Jesus,” I breathed.

He pushed my jeans and underwear down to my ankles. I stepped out and he hooked his hands beneath my legs and lifted me onto the counter. He kissed me again, hard, his hand clutching my hip, and then he went to his knees.

I felt exposed, buck naked, legs spread on my counter under the bright kitchen light, Sam kissing the inside of my thighs, and it was exhilarating. I draped my leg over his shoulder and scooted to the edge of the counter, urging him forward.

He didn’t waste more time. His lips went to my clit like a man in the desert to water. My reaction was electric, back arching, I had to grip the counter to keep my balance. His tongue teased me, made circles, pressed and licked, then slid down into my folds and back again.

I moaned, rocking forward, hands braced behind me. He reached up and placed one hand on my hip, holding me steady, and then took the other and slowly pushed one finger inside me.

“God Sam, fuck,” I panted. He pushed deep, curled his finger slightly, then pulled it out and added a second, his tongue never ceasing its ministrations on my clit. “Gonna cum.”

He lifted his head and looked right at me. “That’s the point,” he said. “Wanna watch you.” He kept his eyes on mine and replaced his lips with his thumb, pumped his fingers hard and faster, and I came hard, clutching around him, my hips bucking off the counter with such force I would’ve fallen if he wasn’t holding me, sounds I didn’t know I was capable of making falling from my lips.

He waited until the aftershocks had stopped before removing his fingers then stood up. I could taste my own tang on his lips as he kissed me. With my hands on his shoulders, I realized he was still fully clothed.

“Bedroom?” I asked.

He picked me up with ease and I wrapped my legs around him, his bulge pressing against my core and despite having just climaxed I was filled with want.

He laid me down on the bed and kissed me. He was taking his time and I wanted none of that. I grabbed his shirt and pulled it over his head, and his skin against mine was nothing short of delicious.

He got up, standing at the foot of the bed and looking down at me as he unbuckled his belt. He was sculpted—lean muscle and tight abs smooth and hard, and I wanted to get my hands and lips on him _yesterday_. He pushed his jeans down and I took in the sight of all of him, his lower half just as impressive as his top, cock long and heavy and dripping. His eyes were dark, roving over my body and he stroked himself, watching me.

I wanted him in my mouth but not as much as I wanted him inside of me. “There’s condoms in the nightstand,” I said, and he walked to it, opened the drawer and found them.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said, rolling it onto his length. “Gonna fuck you. Make you cum again.”

“Quit talking and just fucking do it,” I growled, grabbing his arm and pulling him onto the bed. He moved between my thighs and I bent my knees, opening for him. He kissed me as he pushed in, moving so slowly, and I moaned and lifted my hips, pushing him deeper until he was fully seated, his balls against my ass.

“You’re so fucking tight.”

“No, you’re big.” I thrust my hips into him and he groaned. “Now fuck me. Hard.”

He practically growled as he pulled almost fully out and then slammed back in, the headboard knocking into the wall with the force of him. “Yes, fuck,” I gasped, gripping his shoulders and wrapping my legs around him. He pushed himself up on his arms, thrusting deep as I rocked against him, his pubic bone dragging over my clit with just the right amount of pressure. I felt another orgasm building quickly and I grabbed his ass and pulled him deeper. He quickened his pace, snapping his hips hard. I was close—all of that ecstasy building to a crescendo and I arched off the bed and howled as it spilled over, my walls tightening around Sam as he kept thrusting. Just as I was coming down his rhythm stuttered, and with a sound that was half growl and half grunt he held himself against me as I felt him twitch inside me.

We rest there a minute, then he my kissed my forehead, pulled out, and got up. I heard him in the bathroom and then he was back, slipping back under the covers and pulling me into him, my head tucked into his shoulder. My fingers made trails across his chest, feeling the contours of muscle, the faint scars here and there, the ink over his heart.

“What’s your tattoo?”

He reached up to touch it, unconsciously I thought. “It’s, uh…it’s an anti-possession symbol.”

I looked up at him. “Possession, like... _The Exorcist_ possession?”

He nodded. I took a minute to let that one sink in. My grandmother had been a cradle Catholic who believed in Hell and demons as much as she believed in the Holy Eucharist; Ouija boards, horror movies, anything remotely resembling evil was strictly forbidden from her house. And while I’d never believed it, was unafraid to study legend and myth, some of that fear was coded into my DNA.

I must have been silent too long. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah...I think so. I just...demons feel like another level. If that makes any sense.”

He sighed. “Well, they pretty much are. Most things are acting out of survival, like werewolves or vampires, or for some logical purpose, like a spirit. Demons are just evil, and they...plan, and corrupt.”

I thought back to the lore I’d read, the warnings my grandmother had given us about Ouija boards. “But you have to open to them, right? You have to invite them in.”

“No,” he said. “That’s where most lore is wrong. They don’t have to ask permission, they don’t have to find someone who’s trying to play with fire. They can possess anyone, anytime.” He paused, then said, “One possessed me a few months ago, before I got this.”

I went cold. I sat up, staring at him, suddenly afraid. Sam followed quickly. He cupped my face and kissed me. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It’s like I said before—the chances of you encountering anything supernatural again are slim to none.”

I stared at him, wondering if that were true. Wondering how it _could_ be true, if someone like him, someone who hunts ghosts and monsters and, evidently, demons, were in bed with me. I didn’t know what we were, or even whether we needed to be anything. But I suspected it was a decision I would eventually have to make, that if I wanted Sam to be a part of my life, I would have to accept all that came with him, including the monsters.

Yet despite the potential danger he could bring, it was impossible to not feel safe with him. He’d saved me once, and there was a sense of security in his presence, as if nothing could get past him if he didn’t want it to.

Except: “You said... _you_ were possessed?”

He nodded. “For about a week, until Dean and Bobby exorcised it. Bobby gave us amulets with this symbol on it, and the next day we went and got the tattoos. Dean has one, too. So we’re both protected, now.”

I laid back down, staring up at the ceiling, turning everything over in my head. It felt impossible to me that someone as strong and smart and, well, _together_ as Sam could be possessed. My head was spinning with a thousand new questions: _How did it happen? What was it like? Did it hurt? Why you?_ But that felt invasive, like asking someone about an assault.

“Hey.”

I turned my head. Sam was lying on his side, propped on his elbow, watching me carefully. “If this is too much, if you want me to go—”

“I don’t want you to go.”

He shifted closer and kissed me. “Demons are rare,” he said. “It takes a lot for them to get out of Hell. The only reason we got caught up with them is because the thing we’re hunting, the thing that killed our mom, is a demon. And once we find it, we’ll kill it, and it’ll be over.”

“How do you kill a demon?”

He kissed me. “Does it matter?” He kissed me again, covered me with his body.

“Mmm, I guess not,” I sighed, as he moved one hand between us and reached for the condoms with the other.

* * *

My alarm woke me up too soon the following morning. Sam was behind me, not spooned as snugly against my back, one hand still resting on my hip. I turned off the alarm and shifted, preparing to get up, and his arm snaked around my waist and pulled me flush against him, his nose nuzzling into the nape of my neck. He squeezed me and sighed, an unexpected tension seeming to leave his body as he relaxed into me.

“Is everything okay?” I asked.

He kissed my shoulder. “I’ve lost a lot of people. I’m just glad you’re here.”

There was still so much I didn’t know about him; Sam Winchester was an absolute enigma, a maze of high, solid walls nothing but his own whims could unlock. Instead of asking for an elaboration, I squeezed his hand and pressed into him, feeling his hardness against my thigh. Before I could tell him I needed to get ready for work he was between my legs again and the word _insatiable_ resonated through my head, and I wasn’t sure which one of us I was referring to.

I was shampooing my hair when Sam stepped into the bathroom, pulled back the shower curtain and got in with me. I was about to make a smart ass comment about stamina when he picked up the soap and rubbed it onto the washcloth. He kissed me as he ran it over my skin, turning me to massage my neck and shoulders. “You’re incredible,” he hummed.  My knees felt weak and I let him take over, rinsing the soap from my body. I relaxed into his touch, sated and content with this sudden, new intimacy.

After, I finished getting ready and went to work. Sam stayed in the apartment, saying he had plenty of research to do, that he’d be there when I got back. I was reluctant to leave and must have lingered in the doorway five minutes longer than I needed to, unable to get enough of his lips. He was on my mind all day, and it scared me how much I liked someone I’d only met in person twice, whose background I knew so little of. But did it matter? For nearly two months we’d spoken on the phone, we’d texted, and he felt far from a stranger.

I half expected him to be gone when I got back, called away for a job maybe, but when I walked in the door there he was, crashing his lips into mine, taking my bag and setting it on the floor so he could push my jacket off of my shoulders.

“Been thinking about you all day,” he groaned against my lips as he guided me toward the couch and sat down. His hands reached under my skirt and hooked into the elastic of my underwear. He dragged them down my legs, his eyes never leaving mine.

“Fuck,” I breathed. I stepped out and he pulled me into his lap and a kiss that left me breathless with need. He was hard and straining against his jeans, and I reached between us and freed him, began pumping him in my hand.

He shifted, pulling his jeans down a little more, procured a condom from somewhere and rolled it on. I found myself wondering how much longer we were going to indulge that formality, when (if?) we’d commit to being exclusive so we could forget about condoms altogether. I knew I was safe, and I was dizzy with the thought of feeling him fill me.

He hiked up my dress and I slowly sank onto him, biting back a moan as I reveled in the stretch of him.

“Jesus, Sam,” I gasped. His hand was between us, his thumb making circles on my clit, and I began rocking in earnest, raising up and down on his cock as his hips pistoned up into me. I braced myself against his shoulders. It was fast, desperate. “So close. Gonna—”

I screamed as I came, clenching tightly around him. He kept thrusting until I finished, then, suddenly, he grabbed behind my thighs and lifted me off of him, turned us around and laid me back onto the couch. His hands gripped my hips tightly and he thrust back into me. He fucked me hard and fast, forearms braced on either side of my head as he slammed into me over and over. I bent my knees and dug my heels into the couch, incomprehensible sounds falling from my lips, my nails raking down his back. It was over in less than a minute; his hips stuttered and he came with a satisfied grunt. He dropped his head into the crook of my neck, breathing heavily as he dotted kisses against my skin.

“Holy fuck, Sam.” I panted. “That was...I don’t even know what to do after that.”

He lifted his head and kissed my lips, then pressed his forehead against mine. “Let me take you out to dinner.”

Sam drove my car to an Italian place on the Hill he’d found thanks to Yelp reviews. It was casual, but less so than a Pasta House, though thankfully far from fine-dining. We were both comfortable in jeans. Still, he treated this as any first date: opening doors, pulling out my chair. A perfect gentlemen, so different from the rugged hunter I’d first met.

“So, do you wine and dine every girl you save from ghosts?” I teased.

He winked. “Only the pretty ones.”

I rolled my eyes. “You probably have one of me in every state.”

“Just you,” he says. His tone more serious. “I, uh, this is new to me. Trying to...maintain something while hunting.”

I leaned forward. “Haven’t you been hunting your entire life?”

“Almost. I took a hiatus. Went to Stanford for a few years.”

“ _Stanford?_ Shit, I need to go. You’re out of my league.”

The waiter arrived with our food then, and we spent the next few minutes making awkward small talk with him about the food, do we need anything else, etc.  When he left I asked, “What did you study at Stanford?”

“I was pre-law.”

“Impressive. But?”

He shrugged. “Dean needed me on the road.”

There was more to this story. There was always going to be more to him than he let me in on. But it was evident that, secrets or not, closed doors or open, there was nothing he wouldn’t do for his brother. I let that loyalty be enough for me. “You guys are close.”

He nodded, took a drink of wine, and changed tracks. “So,” he said. “What’s the best book you read last year?”

“Oof, what a question,” I said. “I’ve been reading so much for school it’s hard to read for me anymore.” I thought about it a minute. “I did finally give in and read _The Da Vinci Code_ , and that was fun in a kind of _National Treasure_ way, but I don’t know about _good_.”

Sam laughed. “I felt the same way. Total crap writing.”

“But entertaining!” I said. “I started re-reading the _Harry Potter_ books, too, since the last one comes out this summer. Finally.”

He looked sheepish. “I’m behind.”

“How is that even possible? The last book came out like, I don’t know, two years ago?”

“I was busy at Stanford, and then I was back on the road and it just...wasn’t important.”

It struck me again how vastly different our lives were. The most I had to worry about, even, were research paper deadlines. Sam had lives to save, drove across the country chasing after ghosts, got possessed by demons. Of course he didn’t have time to read. Of course it wasn’t a necessity.

He salvaged the conversation. “Who’s your favorite character, though?”

“Remus,” I said.

“Really? I’d have pegged you for Hermione.”

“I mean, sure. But Remus is the great teacher everyone wants, the Responsible Adult we all look for when things go to hell. And he’s got this dark side to him, the wolf part, and people shun him for it, but he deals with it, doesn’t let it run his life. He’s like a metaphor for the good and evil theme throughout the series: it’s not about what’s in you, it’s what you do with it.”

Sam had stopped eating. He was staring at me, lips parted slightly.

“What?”

He shook his head slowly. He looked like he wanted to do nothing more than climb across the table and pull me into his arms. “It’s just...I hadn’t thought of it like that.”

I started to burn under his gaze. I glanced away. “And you went Stanford? I guess they let anyone in.”

He laughed. Something occurred to me. “Wait! Are witches…?”

“Real? Yeah. But not like that. They’re...pretty awful.”

“Oh. Can’t there be good witches?”

“Not that we’ve found. Maybe they’re out there. Usually they’re just nasty.”

The conversation drifted away from monsters to more palatable topics: movies, music, politics. He asked about my family, he told me about Dean. He told me his favorite places he’s been and I told him my own dreams of traveling, nationally and abroad. After dinner was finished he drove us back to my place and we put on a movie, though it was soon forgotten for more enticing activities.

When I came home from work the next day he was sitting at my kitchen table, his laptop open in front of him and his phone against his ear. “—bigger the better. More places to hide.”

I hung up my jacket and kicked my shoes off. I was sorting through the mail when Sam’s voice grew more urgent. I paused, listening.

“Wait—no, no, no, no, no. Come pick me up first.” A beat. “Dean—. Damn it.” He set the phone down and sighed.

I walked into the kitchen and placed my hands on his shoulders. “What’s up?”

“Yesterday Dean sent me a few articles about disappearances up near Joliet. I looked into them while you at work yesterday, but apparently Dean decided to check it out himself.” He sounded annoyed. I knew he was hiding his worry.

I sat down next to him. “What is it?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s a Djinn,” he said. He clicked open a new tab and turned his screen toward me. On it were images of a creature shrouded in blue flame, dark tattoos across its skin.

“Ooh, these guys are all over the Quran.” I scrolled down the page. “Silver knife dipped in lamb’s blood, I bet.”

He gaped at me, then leaned over and kissed me. “You’re incredible, you know that?”

I grinned. “So you’ve said.”

He looked back at the webpage and drummed his fingers on the table. He checked his phone.

“You have to go, don’t you?”

He sighed, placed his hand over mine. “I don’t want to leave. But—”

It had only been two days. I’d held out hope for longer, and was disappointed. But this was how it would be with Sam, and if it was this or nothing, I would take what I could get.

I squeezed his hand, stood up and kissed him. “Go. But be careful.”

He had his bag packed in less than five minutes, done with the practiced movements of someone who was used to picking up and moving at a moment’s notice. “Do you need my car, Sam?”

He paused as if thinking about it. “No. I’ll be fine.”

I didn’t ask what his plan was. I didn’t think he wanted me to know.

I walked him out. He was anxious to go, but he pulled me to him and kissed me fiercely. “Thank you,” he said. “For everything. The last two days were…”

“Come back,” I said. “Call me. Stay safe.”

He kissed me again, then was out the door and gone.

* * *

For a terrifying moment, Sam thought his brother was dead. Until Dean opened his eyes, Sam was convinced it was his fault, that he should’ve been there from the get-go, that Dean wouldn’t have gone off on his own if he hadn’t wanted to give Sam more time with Y/N.

But Dean did open his eyes, and together they took out the Djinn and got the girl to the hospital. Dean refused to be seen—it had only been a few hours, after all—but Sam made him sit in the hotel and loaded him up with orange juice and burgers until he was satisfied Dean wouldn’t keel over. He sent Y/N a quick text that they were both fine, decided to wait to call her, wanting time with Dean to decompress, mull over what had happened.

“You should’ve seen it, Sam.”

Sam wanted to. There was a part of him, a twisted part he knew, that was envious of Dean’s short-lived fantasy, even though he’d been living his own the past forty-eight hours. To have seen his mother… “I’m glad you dug yourself out, Dean. Most people wouldn’t’ve had the strength, would’ve just stayed.”

“Yeah...lucky me. I gotta tell you though, man. You know, you had Jess. Mom was gonna have grandkids.”

It still stung; it would always sting, he thought, no matter where their lives went, no matter who else he was with. He didn’t think there would ever be a time he didn’t miss Jess, and as fictional and fabricated as it’d been, he was hit with the unfairness that Dean had seen her again, and he hadn’t.

“Yeah, but...Dean...it wasn’t real.” He said it for himself as much as his brother, who was moping harder than he’d seen in years.

“I know. But I wanted to stay.” He looked lost; Sam felt like the eldest for once, struck by Dean’s sorrow almost physically. “I wanted to stay so bad. I mean, ever since Dad...all I can think about is how much this job's cost us. We've lost so much. We've... sacrificed so much.”

“But people are alive because of you.” Dean scoffed. “It's worth it, Dean. It is. It's not fair, and... you know, it hurts like hell, but... it's worth it.”

Dean looked at him, then back down, pensive, sad.

“But it doesn’t have to be the rest of our lives.”

Dean raised his head. “It has cost us a lot,” Sam said. “And I’m tired. I want to finish this job. I want to kill the demon. But then…”

“You thinking about Y/N?”

Sam glanced away. “It’s still soon,” he admitted. “But she’s made me realize...I want to try to get out. And with Yellow Eyes gone, maybe.”

Dean was quiet. He looked back at the magazine in front of him, open to an ad for Sol beer. “You must really like this girl, Sammy.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I do.”

Dean shut the magazine and tossed it aside. “Then let’s finish the job,” he said with finality. “Let’s get you that apple pie life.”

Dean went to sleep not long after that, and Sam stepped out of the motel room to call Y/N. The weather was finally warming up as the year turned to mid-April, but with the sun down and the windchill, the air still bit. He climbed into the Impala’s passenger seat before dialing.

“Hey. Everything good with Dean?”

“Yeah. He—well, it’s a good thing I left.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“The Djinn had him. Probably for only a few hours, but it was long enough. I thought I was too late.”

“Shit, Sam. But he’s okay? You’re okay?”

He didn’t answer at first. He wasn’t sure if he was okay or not. “Sam?”

“Djinn don’t grant wishes,” he said. “Not really. They poison you, put you in kind of a coma and fabricate your deepest desires inside your head.”

She was quiet at first. “So, Dean was…?”

“He said it was like our mom had never been killed. She was alive, we’d never started hunting, I was in law school at Stanford, I was engaged…”

“You were engaged?”

He sighed. “I need to tell you something.” He could hear the anxiety in her silence. “I went to Stanford because I wanted out of the life. It wasn’t easy growing up; my dad was...well, he was an asshole. All he cared about was revenge. It didn’t matter to him what it cost him, even if that meant his kids grew up in motel rooms eating cold SpaghettiOs and knowing there could be monsters lurking around every corner. And I hated it; the training, the hunting, the always moving. When I got accepted to Stanford, I said I was leaving. And when I did, Dad told me not to come back. So I didn’t. And then Dean came to get me on Halloween over a year ago because Dad was missing.

“It was only supposed to be for a weekend; one job, then I was going back. I had an interview for law school that Monday.”

“What happened?” Her voice was gentle, soothing. She knew this was hard, and he wished he were there in person.

“When I got back—” He swallowed. Tried again. “The thing that killed my mom it...it had my girlfriend, Jessica. I watched her die, our apartment burned down...Dean had to drag me out. After that...I couldn’t stay. I wanted revenge as much as our dad. I’ve been hunting again ever since.”

“Sam, I’m so sorry.” She meant it; it wasn’t a platitude, he could hear that in her voice. “I had no idea.”

He chose his next words carefully. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Is this—you and me—is this something you want?”

She laughed, just lightly. “It’s different,” she said. “But, yeah, I think so.”

He felt a swell of relief. “I don’t know when I’ll see you again,” he said. “I don’t know how much longer we’ll be doing this...perpetual, sporadic long-distance. But once we kill the demon, that’s it. That’s what we’ve been trying to do our whole lives.”

“So, what? You’re thinking you’ll stop hunting?”

“I like you,” he said. “A lot. And I want more than just quick stops every few months.”

“I want that, too.”

They were both silent on each end of the line for awhile, each in their own thoughts. “Sam?”

“What?”

“Is there anything I can do to help you?”

He knew she meant with the case, the demon, but he said, “Stay safe. Be patient. I’ll get there when I can, every time.”

“I know.”

“I know it isn’t ideal—”

“It is what it is, Sam. We can’t do anything about it, at least not until you’ve finished what you need to finish.”

He drummed his fingers against the dash. “It’s late. I can call you tomorrow?”

“You can. Or we can keep talking. I don’t mind, if you don’t.”

He didn’t mind. It was two hours later when he finally got out of the car and went back into the motel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most of the dialogue between Sam & Dean at the end of this chapter is lifted straight from "What is and What Should Never Be."


	4. Chapter 4

“What does this guy do again?”

I was visiting my brother, Jason, who lived with his family an hour south of St. Louis on several acres of land that included a large fishing pond. That’s where we were now, seated on the dock, lines cast into the water. Jason and I had both grown up in the city, but he’d been a Cub Scout and then a Boy Scout, and all that outdoorsy adventuring had worn off on him. I was city through and through: I loved the noise, the bustle, the culture. Jason, contrary to everyone else in the family, had gone country on us: he fished and hunted and camped. He even raised chickens. 

“He and his brother are antiques dealers, so they travel a lot.” The lie rolled off of my tongue; I’d rehearsed it until it sounded natural, knowing it was sufficient enough to explain Sam’s absence, but subtle enough of a job to not raise questions. 

He nodded. “So how often do you get to see him?”

“Depends on when the job brings him nearby.” I reeled in my line, checked that the bait was still attached, and cast it back out. It was a warm evening on the last Sunday in April. It’d been almost three weeks since Sam had to cut our time short to rescue his brother, and he and Dean had been chasing cases ever since. Despite talking to him daily, that feeling of missing him had settled in, right alongside the quiet fear that something would happen to him.

“But you’re happy?”

“What’s with the interrogation?”

“Y/N, the last guy you were with was honestly kind of a loser to begin with, and then he hit you. You can’t blame me for asking questions.”

“Fair,” I said. “But, yeah. I’m happy. You’d like him, Jason, he’s great.”

“Good.” He stood up, jerked his pole to the left, and then began reeling as the line went taut. Moments later, he had a good-sized bluegill—his fourth to my zero—on the dock. He unhooked it and dropped it into the cooler. “So what else is new? Still boxing?”

“Yep.” I’d actually upped the intensity of my training, hitting the gym more often, attending more sparring sessions. For one thing, I needed the distraction; a part of me feared I’d dive too quickly into Sam and lose my independence, as ridiculous as that may seem. For another, I recognized the danger the Winchesters could inevitably bring with them. Sam promised me I was safe, and I believed him, mostly. And while I knew there was little I could reasonably do to protect myself from  _ monsters _ , it made me feel a little better to know I could hold my own in a fight, at the very least.

Jason was packing up the tackle, and I reeled my line in and clipped the hook into the pole. “Well,” he said. “Next time he’s in town, you should bring him out. We’ll barbeque or something.”

I smiled. There was normalcy in that, something we’d be hard pressed to attain, at least for awhile, but it was hopeful. “Yeah,” I said. “That sounds good.”

I stayed for dinner, enjoying the antics of my toddler-aged nephews while simultaneously feeling thankful they were not  _ my _ responsibility to care for. Once the kids were asleep, Jason, his wife Jen, and I sat down in the living room, the TV on in the background as we caught up.

My phone rang, vibrating in my pocket, and I checked it, expecting Sam. Instead, Dean’s name flashed on the caller ID. I excused myself and stepped outside to answer, puzzled.

“Hello?”

“It’s Dean. I need your help.”

Something cold settled in my gut. He hadn’t said  _ we _ .

“Where’s Sam?”

“I don’t know!” he snapped, and I pulled the phone away, hurt, but panic settled in quickly. “He went to get food and didn’t come out. I went in and there’s signs of demons everywhere, but no Sam.” He sounded out of breath, flustered. My heart was pounding, too. “I’m on my way to Bobby’s to figure out what I can, but I need you to to look into some stuff—demon signs, omens, anything.”

I felt short of breath. I sat down on the front step. “Dean, I’m not a hunter, I don’t—”

“God da—” he stopped himself, took a deep breath, and started again. “I know you’re not. But you’ve helped with cases before, and the more people I get on this, the sooner I find him.”

I took a shaky breath. “Okay. What exactly am I looking for?”

“Text me your email, and I’ll have Bobby send you some stuff.”

“Okay.”

“Thanks.”

“Let me know if—” But he hung up. I texted him my email with shaking hands. Sam was missing. There were signs of demons where he’d vanished from. 

I was scared.

I pulled myself together and went back inside, plastering on a fake yawn as I re-entered the living room. “I think I’m gonna head out,” I said. “I’m beat, and I still have to drive back.”

In typical Midwest fashion, it took three times as long as it should have to say goodbye, and by then I was getting irritated. I sped all the way home, but it was still over an hour after I’d talked to Dean that I opened my laptop to find an email from Bobby. I read it quickly, then settled in and began researching all I could. 

There wasn’t much. Dean called to confirm as much from Bobby’s end, then said he was driving to meet a contact in Nebraska and would get back to me.

I didn’t hear from him, or Sam, or even Bobby for three days.  

* * *

The shrill chiming of my cell phone dragged me out of the restless sleep I’d fallen into. I snatched it from the nightstand and fumbled it open. “Sam?!”

“I’m okay,” he soothed, but he sounded far from it. 

I sat up straight. “What happened to you? Dean called me three days ago and said you were missing and then dropped off the planet.” 

“I’m sorry. I’ll explain everything. We’re in Wyoming, but we’ll head your way first thing in the morning.”

I held the phone away from my ear and looked at the time. It was just after one a.m. I was drained; I hadn’t slept well since Dean’s phone call, trying to research what I could and anxious over Sam. I was suddenly pissed at Dean and his negligence the past three days, how unfair it was to leave me in the dark. 

“Y/N?”

“I thought I’d lost you.”

His silence fell heavily on the other end of the line. “I’ll be there as soon as I can. Probably late Thursday, early Friday.”

It would have to be enough. I wanted him here, now, but he was so impossibly far away. We didn’t say much more. I could tell he was beyond exhausted and I let him go and tried to sleep away some of the hours still between us, but it was mostly spent tossing and turning before I had to get up and force my way through another long workday and then the longer, unoccupied hours afterward. I forced myself to go to the gym, cleaned the entire apartment top to bottom, and even then it was only just after eight p.m. Based on his texted departure time and the eighteen hour drive, I still had another six hours until he’d be here.

I fell asleep watching Animal Planet, dozed in and out as Sam texted me updates:  _ Should be another 4 hours. Can’t wait to see you. Need you. _ I got up around midnight and half sleepwalked to the door and unlocked it, then returned to my blanket cocoon and stared at a program about wolves until I fell back asleep. 

* * *

Dean pulled the Impala up to the curb outside of Y/N’s townhouse just before three in the morning. Sam already had his hand on the door, but Dean grabbed his elbow. “Sammy.”

Sam craned his head to look at him. “As long as you need, okay?”

He wanted to tell Dean that he didn’t have as long as he needed, that there weren’t enough hours or days or weeks, didn’t Dean know that? But he couldn’t have that conversation again, not now, so he just nodded, grabbed his bag from the backseat and trotted up to the door. The lights were on upstairs and Sam wondered if she was even awake. Her last text was from over two hours ago.

He knocked, then for some reason turned the doorknob. It was unlocked; the door swung open and he went inside. He didn’t like that one bit, he thought, as he locked and bolted it behind him and went up the stairs.

Y/N was asleep on the couch, the TV on some late-night infomercial. He wanted to let her sleep, let her have a few more hours of peace before he brought everything down on her, but he couldn’t wait, knew he needed her now.

He sat on the couch beside her and brushed a hand over her face. “Y/N, baby, wake up.”

She opened her eyes. It took her a moment to register him and then she sat upright and threw her arms around him. He held her tightly, buried his face in her neck, and tried to keep himself from shaking apart.  

She pulled back and kissed him, and it was all the invitation he needed. He claimed her mouth, kissing her until there was nothing in his head but the feel of her lips and the pressure in his jeans. He stood, tugging her up with him and moved them to the bedroom, barely breaking away from her at all, hands always touching, squeezing. 

She didn’t say anything, somehow understanding what he needed as she pulled his shirt from his back and then slipped out of her own clothes. Sam kicked off his boots and jeans, then sighed as his skin moved against hers. She was pliant beneath him, wanting to give him everything he needed. Sam moved his lips against her neck, sucking the spot below her ear he knew drove her wild and slipped two fingers between her folds.

“More, Sam,” she gasped, and a moan escaped his lips when she took his cock in her hands, her thumb spreading precum over the head. She shifted her hips and he felt her knees raise to his ribs. He reached toward the nightstand drawer, but she stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. He looked down at her. She shook her head. “It’s okay.”

This deserved a longer conversation; he wasn’t an idiot, but he trusted her. His lips fell back to hers as he lined himself up and pressed in with a groan. He forced himself to start slow, giving two long, deep thrusts before he let go, fucking into her with a desperate, urgent rhythm. Y/N’s legs were tight around him, heels and hands pulling him in. “It’s okay, Sam,” she breathed. He felt her slide her hand between them, her fingers twitching over her clit so he didn’t have to, so this could just be about him. Sam’s world shrunk to just the the two of them, the feeling her of wrapped like hot silk around him, the warmth of her breath, and he did let go, his mouth crashing against hers as he came, pumping hot and hard into her. 

He held her head between his hands, kissing her, thrusting through the last of his orgasm until he felt her shudder, back arching, the squeeze of her walls. Her hand left her center and cupped the back of his head, scratching his scalp, fingers combing through his hair. He dropped her face to her shoulder and released a shuddering breath. She tightened her hold on him.

“I’ve got you.”

Sam felt something break in him. A sob tore from his chest and he cried, all the horror of the past days pouring out of him. Y/N stroked his hair and his back as he worked through it, until he could compose himself, and when he was done he lifted his head from her damp shoulder and kissed her, wishing he could express what she meant to him, even if he wasn’t entirely sure.

He was soft now and slid out of her. While she went to the bathroom she stripped the sheets from the bed and got a fresh set from the closet. He was bent over the bed, tucking in the bottom when he heard her gasp behind him.

His head snapped to her, alarmed. “What?”

She walked to him and placed her hand on his back, the bruising around it, his newest, most deadly scar. “Sam…” her eyes were huge, afraid. He turned so she could no longer see it and sat down on the bed. “What happened?”

This was the part he’d been dreading, the point where he couldn’t hide from her, where he revealed not only what happened in Cold Oak but his whole life, things about himself he’d only just come to know: the visions, the plan, the blood. And what came after, the darker state of the world now, his brother…

“There’s so much you don’t know,” he said, tugging on her arm as he slid over to give her room. “About me. About everything.”

She picked up his discarded flannel from the floor and slipped into it, then settled in beside him. They were both leaning against the headboard, and she pulled the blankets over their laps. “So tell me.” It hit him again how beautiful she was, wearing his shirt, still flushed from her orgasm, eyes bright despite how tired she had to be. 

Sam took a breath. She would either accept what he had to say or run screaming, and he wasn’t sure which outcome scared him more. He didn’t want to lose her, but if she rejected him, at least she’d be safe. 

He started at the beginning, his beginning, that night he lost Jess. Then the visions, his connection to Yellow Eyes, the confrontation a year ago. He told her about almost losing Dean, their father’s sacrifice and the ultimatum he gave Dean before he went, the other special children, the demon’s plans. He gave her all the pieces she needed to understand what had happened in Cold Oak, and then he told her about that, until it came to telling her about his own death. He stopped. He didn’t know if he had the words. He didn’t know if he understood, how he could make her understand.

“I didn’t hear Dean’s warning in time,” he said. “I heard Jake behind me and felt it, white hot in my back, and then Dean was screaming and that was it.” They had slid onto the pillows; Sam was studying the ceiling as he spoke, and Y/N was on her side, watching him intently. She’d been silent most of the time he’d talked, except to ask for clarification here and there. Now, she placed her hand on his arm. She’d seen the scar—its position, its color. She had to know it wasn’t natural, to look so healed after only a few days, devoid of stitches or dressing.

“What saved you?”

“I was gone,” he said. He closed his eyes. “Jake killed me. Dean…” He swallowed. He’d left out important information. “You know what a Crossroads Deal is?”

She let out a surprised gasp.

He finally looked at her. Her expression was a cocktail of disbelief and horror. Sam’s voice was almost inaudible.  “Dean sold his soul to bring me back. He has one year.”

She clutched his arm. “No.”

He nodded. “It’s true.” He felt his fear threaten to engulf him again. 

“Sam, fuck, I—”

“Don’t. You can’t.”

She fell silent, still watching him with a look he couldn’t stomach. He focused back on the ceiling. “We found Jake, and the demon, but we were too late. We killed them, but—”

She propped herself up on her elbow. “You killed the demon?”

He nodded. She grinned. “Sam that’s—that’s incredible. That’s...you did it!”

He shook his head. She was right, of course. It  _ was _ incredible, but the relief he’d felt at the time had vanished the minute the words  _ one year _ had tumbled from his brother’s mouth. “It isn’t over, Y/N,” he said, and her smile fell. “Before we could stop him, Yellow Eyes let hundreds of demons out of Hell. He unleashed an army.”

She shivered. “What does that mean, Sam?”

“It means I can’t stop,” he said, rolling onto his side and meeting her gaze. “I can’t stop hunting, and I have to find a way to save my brother. It isn’t over. It might never be over.”

“What can I do?”

“I don’t think there’s anything you can do.”

She didn’t say anything else. Instead she scooted over to him so she could kiss him, and then snuggled close, tucking her head under his chin. “Then we’ll leave tomorrow for tomorrow,” she said. 

Sam held her, gently rubbing her back, feeling her breathe with him, feeling her warmth, and suddenly the past week caught up to him and he was exhausted beneath his contentment.

As Y/N’s breathing deepened, wrapped in all of her Sam slipped into a light doze, riding just below the cusp of consciousness. Small dreams crept up, distant enough that he knew they were dreams but close enough to ensnare him regardless. He was running, and in the distance he heard Dean calling for him, though he couldn’t figure out which direction it was coming from. Then, something pierced his back and he cried out. Dean’s face swam into his view and Sam reached for him, but his brother’s face was engulfed in darkness and he was gone.

Sam jolted upright, startling Y/N awake too. “Whatswrong?!” she gasped, rolling onto her side to look at him. Sam closed his eyes and heaved a breath, then pushed his hair back. “Just a dream,” he said, but he threw his legs over the side of the bed. He scrubbed a hand down his face.

Y/N slid up behind him. She placed a gentle kiss on his shoulder and the rested her chin there, one hand coming to settle on his forearm. 

“I’ll help you, you know,” she said quietly.

He turned his head to look at her. “What?”

She rubbed her thumb on his forearm. “With Dean. I’ll help you find a way to save him.”

He turned his whole body now, right arm naturally sliding behind her back. She lifted her head and met his gaze. 

He was so afraid. He would never admit it, but he’d spent most of his life being afraid: of monsters, of his father, of losing his family, of himself. He’d lost his mother, he’d lost Jess, then his father just a few short months ago. Now Dean’s life was ticking down even as he sat there— sat there instead of doing anything about it—with this girl who was growing more and more important to him, who was talking about helping save his brother. Talking about becoming even more involved in his very unpredictable, dangerous life. After an army of demons had erupted out of hell.

Sam felt his guard go up. He shook his head. “No.”

“Sam—”

He squeezed her arm just above the elbow. He sighed. “Look. It’s just...yesterday, when the Devil’s Gate opened,  _ hundreds  _ of demons shot out. We don’t bring people into the life...and our lives just got that much more dangerous.” He shook his head. “I lost Jess because of a demon...because of  _ me. _ If you…” He stopped. She wore an amused smile, her eyebrows slightly raised, and he realized he’d started to admit what she meant to him—even if Sam wasn’t quite sure himself. 

But she grew serious and took his hand. “I’m not talking about joining the life. I don’t want to be a hunter, Sam. But I have access to so many resources. I can use that. I want to help.”

He sighed, feeling stupid. Of course.  He looked at her, his shirt falling off one shoulder, her hair a mess, makeup streaked under her eyes. She was his one comfort, keeping him grounded in all of this.

“Okay,” he said, and kissed her forehead. “Promise me something.”

She quirked an eyebrow. “Tell me what it is first.”

“My life is messy. I thought there’d be an end, but now I’m not sure there ever will be.” He stroked her cheek. “If it’s ever too much, if you want out, you just have to say it. This is my life. It doesn’t have to be yours.”

She closed her eyes and turned her face into his hand. He thought this was the moment she admitted he was right, that she wasn’t meant to scrub the floorboards of his blood, that she’d take the out he’d offered her. It would break him to lose her, but only a little. Better now, when it was her choice, when she could be safe, than when it was too late and something took her from him.

But she leaned forward and kissed him. “No,” she said. “I’m not promising that. When I didn’t hear from you, when you were missing, I felt sick. I’m not giving you up, Sam. I’ll take the bad if I have to, but I’m not running away.”

He nodded, relieved and terrified, and kissed her and pulled her against him. “Then I have conditions.”

“What kind of conditions?” She sounded defensive.

“If you want this, if you aren’t going to run screaming from me, then I have to do what I can to keep you safe. I don’t know what’s coming, but I know it’s bad. I know I told you before you were unlikely to run into any demons or anything...but things have changed. A lot of fucking demons came out of that Devil’s Gate.” He tapped the symbol on his chest. “How do you feel about tattoos?”

She ran her fingers over it. “You know, I’ve been thinking about it ever since you told me demons don’t need an invitation to possess people. What else?”

He pulled his legs into bed and settled against the headboard. Behind the curtains he could just see the sky beginning to lighten. He felt exhaustion settle into his bones. “There are things we can do to the house to protect it, keep bad things out.” A thought occurred to him. "You can't keep the door unlocked."  
  
She blinked. "I wanted it to be easier for you.  
  
"Easier for me is easier for anything else, too."

She laid down beside him, warm and soft against his side. “Okay," she said. "We can do all of that tomorrow. And then we’ll figure out save your brother. Any other conditions?”

Every time he thought about Dean he felt a little sick with fear now, but he pushed that away for now, built a nice brick cage around it, and rolled so he was covering her with his body. “Maybe one,” he said, grinned devilishly, and captured her mouth in his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the wait; I've had severe writer's block paired with working on my Master's thesis...so I haven't had inspiration OR time. But I was at the convention in Nashville this past weekend, and that seems to have shaken me out of it, at least somewhat. Spring break is next week, so I am HOPING to continue updating this and/or my other fic. 
> 
> Comments are fuel, as always. Thanks for the feedback!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking with me! I know it's been too long. The next couple of chapters will be up more quickly.
> 
> For those of you also reading More Than a Feeling, it'll get where it needs to be, too, but I've hit a wall with it, so it's going much more slowly.

My alarm woke me up after only a few short hours. I groaned and hit snooze, but five minutes later it was blaring again. I turned it off with a sigh and started to sit up, but Sam snaked an arm around my middle and pulled me against him, nuzzling into the back of my neck.

“Stay.”

“I can’t,” I grumbled, though to be completely honest, I was considering calling in anyway. “I have to be responsible.”

He released me with a kiss on the shoulder and I got up, pulling on a pair of jeans and a sweater before shuffling into the bathroom. I certainly looked like I’d gotten only three hours of sleep: skin pale, eyes dark and puffy. I washed my face and decided that dry shampoo would have to suffice for the day, brushed my teeth, and went back to the bedroom. 

Sam asleep was something to behold, all long-limbs and wild hair, his face peaceful. He looked  _ soft _ , younger, and I sat beside him and bent over to kiss his cheek. “I’m leaving,” I said. “But it’s a short day. I’ll be home around two.”

He grabbed my hand, eyes still closed. “Be safe.”

Had he said that a week ago, I would have rolled my eyes. Somehow, everything felt different. I squeezed his fingers. “Be here when I get back?”

Drowsily, he nodded. I stood up, snatched a banana from the counter, and headed to work.

* * *

It was a slow day, as Fridays tended to be, and I’d finished most of my required tasks within the first two hours of my shift. My two appointments had canceled, but there was always a chance someone else would pop in, so I instead tucked into my office to work on my own research. I pulled a few texts on local legend, deciding to focus on the 1949  exorcism case at St. Louis University.  

This one was interesting, and far more than local legend—it was the inspiration for the 1973 film  _ The Exorcist _ , though that was set in Georgetown and much of the details were changed. 

As fascinating as the case was, it was hard to focus. The past few days and late night had taken a toll on me, my chair was comfortable, and a steady rain was falling outside, a soft patter that soon lulled me into sleep.

It wasn’t restful. Nightmares plagued me: devouring shadows, fanged beasts, an overwhelming sense of helplessness and terror as I ran down a dark street, cold hands gripping me, dragging me down. A shadow overcame me and I lost all control of myself, my body occupied by something old and dark and so cold.

I bolted awake as a clap of thunder rattled my windowpane. It took me a few seconds to reorient myself. Heart pounding, I checked the clock: just after 1:30. 

I looked down at the book I’d fallen asleep on. Staring back at me was a humanoid figure with a gargoyle’s face and menacing black eyes—some illustrator’s interpretation of the demon that must have possessed the little boy in ‘49. 

It was too real to me now, I realized. After everything Sam had told me the night before, I couldn’t take it as fiction. Maybe that drawing was a complete invention, but demons were real, they possessed people, and there were, according to Sam, hundreds just roaming the Earth, looking for bodies to inhabit.

I suddenly felt sick. I closed the book and went to the window, watching the spring storm buffet trees like they were nothing. It was dark enough to be evening, not midday. A bolt of lightning sprinted from sky to horizon, and I felt a thrill rush through me. 

I was no coward, but I was no fool, either. I did not, as a rule, put myself in dangerous situations, but I didn’t run at the first sign of trouble. Yet Sam was dangerous, or at least, he brought danger with him—an entire world of it, a lifetime of it, one he wouldn’t necessarily ever escape from. 

I shivered and folded my arms across my chest. I liked him a lot, but Sam meant the opposite of stability: what future did we have, if he was always chasing  _ literal _ demons? He’d saved my life, but that didn’t mean I wanted to spend it up to my elbows in all of the darkness that came with him. It’s not like I’d ever imagined a typical future for myself: I had no ambitions for a house and children and a picket fence. I liked the freedom that came with renting a place and having no responsibility but my own. But to knowingly and willingly walk into a relationship that came with monsters? I didn’t know if I had the stomach for it.

But I’d promised to help him.

But that didn’t mean I had to do or be anything more.

I sighed. The storm was calming down, drifting East. I turned back to my desk and began packing up. I’d sneak out a few minutes early, once the rain stopped. 

* * *

I steeled myself before entering my unit. Despite my eagerness to see Sam again, I had to swallow back my anxiety. I just wasn’t sure what I would say to him, if I wanted to pretend I was fine or bluntly get it out: the fear, my misgivings, all of it. I unlocked the door and went up the stairs.

He was sitting on the couch, hunched over his laptop. His back was to me, but when he heard me come in he turned and smiled, and I had to fight to keep all the rational thinking I’d done from dispersing. I smiled back, but he caught my hesitation, and his face fell. “What is it?”

I moved around the couch, sat beside him, and reached into my bag. I pulled out the book I’d fallen asleep on earlier, opened to the pages about the 1949 case, and handed it to him. He looked from me to the book, brows drawn together, and then started skimming the pages.

I cleared my throat. “Is this...real?”

His eyes darted over a few more lines and then he looked at me. He knew I knew demons, possessions, exorcisms were real. “What are you asking me?”

“I….” I rubbed my hands against my thighs. “Do they just randomly possess people?  _ Children? _ And is it...vomiting and thrashing and—” I stood up suddenly, shaking myself.

Sam took my hand. “Y/N.”

I sank back onto the couch and leaned back, looking up at the ceiling. I blew out a breath. “I’m terrified.”

He brought his hand to my face, gently turning me toward him. I dragged my eyes to his. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you. I’ll keep you safe.”

I believed him. I did feel safe with him here. But.

I shook my head. “It’s not enough. You’re not going to be here most of the time. And if something’s going to happen, it’ll be when you’re four states away. I need to know how  _ I’m _ going to keep me safe.”

He nodded gravely. “Is this what you want?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know.”

“If I leave now, if we end this, are you really going to feel safer?”

He made a good point. The curtain of the world had been pulled back. I’d already seen the truth of what was out there, horror had already settled into my bones. What difference did it make, at this point? Maybe I’d be safer without him. But I’d be alone, with no one else to understand the crippling weight of the awful, black truth. 

I sighed. 

“You’re off tomorrow, right?” I nodded. “We’ll get you the tattoo first thing in the morning. I already talked to Dean. He said he could bring the supplies over sometime tomorrow so we could work on demon-proofing this place.”

“What about right now?”

“Let me show you.”

He stood, pulling me by the hand, and took me to the top of the stairs. In the doorway, a line of something white streaked across the floor. I hadn’t noticed it at all when I’d come in. 

“What is that?”

“Salt,” he said. “Remember the ghost? Spirits can’t cross salt, and neither can demons. There’s some in front of the door downstairs, too.”

He pulled me across the room to the window. Another line of salt ran across the bottom there, too. 

“I did all of them,” he said, showing me around the unit like it was a tour. 

“So I just...keep salt in front of all of my entry points forever?”

He shrugged. “Salt lines are your first line of defense, basically.”

If I hadn’t seen the way the spirit had shrunk back from it before, I wouldn’t have believed him. It was messy, though, and easy to scatter. “There has to be a better way to do this than to just throw salt everywhere.”

“You’d be the one to figure it out,” he said. 

I was chewing on that thought when he added, “About that book...I can’t say for sure. A demon could, technically, make a vessel do those things, but I don’t know why it would. Demons are just black smoke. They possess people so they have a body to interact with the world.”

“So you don’t think that was a real case?”

“A lot of the real signs are there, and I guess that demon could have just wanted to mess with the Church, so it’s possible, definitely. But I don’t know. I’d have to do more research.” After a beat, he added, “But the picture is total bullshit.”

I snorted. He pulled me to him and cupped my face in his hands. His expression was solemn. “I know I’m asking a lot. I know this isn’t the kind of life anyone wants. And if you really want me to go, I will. Part of me thinks that might be for the best.”

Maybe it would be for the best, for both of us. But at the same time, I knew he’d already altered my life so fundamentally that there was no going back. And if I had to live with monsters, I wanted to live with Sam, too.

“It’s like I said last night,” I said, placing my hands on his wrists and pulling his arms down. “I’m not giving you up.”

He leaned down and kissed me, embracing me in a way that suggested he felt the same. When he pulled away he said, “What do you want to do tonight?” and I laughed at the sudden switch in tone from life-altering proclamations to normal Friday night chatter. 

“I’m exhausted,” I said. “And I bet you are, too. Are you opposed to just ordering pizza?”

It turned out he wasn’t. We ate on the couch, sharing pizza and a bottle of wine I had leftover in the fridge,  _ Seinfeld  _ reruns playing in the background. We had silently agreed that any talk of hunting or demons was postponed until tomorrow, and we alternated between chortling at the TV and conversing about whatever tangent the show had inspired. 

Satiated with dinner, we moved to the bedroom and the tone shifted again. There was no rush this time, no desperation, no frenzied scramble to devour one another as quickly as possible. We took our time feeling each other, studying each other’s bodies and movements and sensations, hands and mouths exploring and pleasing. 

“Last night,” he said, his hand resting on my hip as he settled between my thighs. “We didn’t, um. Do we need…?”

“I’m on the pill, and I know I’m clean. I took a gamble you were too. Are you?”

He nodded, ducking his head to plant a kiss between my breasts. “And we’re exclusive.”

It wasn’t a question, he was telling me. Of course it was obvious, but he said it as if someone might challenge it. He settled it, and something about that thrilled me, that we were only each other’s.

“Then I don’t see a need for them anymore.” I pulled him to me, hiking my legs up to encourage him. He took his time, and while there was still a power in him, a string pulled taut at all times, we moved slowly against one another, a rhythmic exploration, a dance. 

When we’d finished, spent and satisfied, he rolled off of me and got up, heading for the bathroom. With his naked back to me, I again saw the bruising on his spine, the pink scar, and I gasped, memory slamming back into me. I’d forgotten. The idea of demons roaming the world, lurking in the shadows, ready to leap out and grab me, had overpowered everything, even the fact that Sam had literally been brought back from the dead. 

Sam turned quickly, alarmed. Before he could say anything, I stood and moved to him and collided with the solidity of him. I threw my arms around him buried my face in his neck. “You  _ died _ ,” I said, and then I was crying for the first time since he’d disappeared and come back. It had finally, in that moment, hit me. And out of everything—that the Devil’s Gate had opened, that he’d been given demon blood as an infant and was part of some unholy sceheme—this, that he had been murdered in cold blood and brought back to life, was somehow more horrifying. 

Sam didn’t say anything. He held me against him and stepped forward until my knees hit the mattress and I sank back into it. He slid in beside me and pulled me close. 

“How can you stand it?” I mumbled against his skin. “It’s one thing to know you  _ could _ , but to actually…” I shivered, clutched him harder.

His lips pressed against my forehead.  “It’s weird to think about,” he said. “But I don’t  _ remember. _ Nothing about me feels any different.”

 I pulled back and scrubbed my hand across my eyes, wiping at lingering tears, then looked at him closely. He was inscrutable. Last night, he’d told me everything. This was a man who, in the span of a few hours, discovered he had demon blood and then been killed and resurrected. When he’d spoken of the former, he hadn’t been able to hide his horror, his crushing shame. Maybe that should have been a sign that  _ I _ should have been more upset, but I didn’t understand it or what it meant. But death? I was lying beside maybe the only man on the planet who had been raised from the dead. But his face betrayed nothing. 

A thought occurred to me. “So you didn’t...go anywhere?”

“What like...heaven? Hell?”

“I guess...we know Hell is real, right? Does that mean Heaven is, too?”

He rolled onto his back, staring at the ceiling. “I like to think so. But Hell is the only reality I know.”

A heavy reality, I realized. I watched his eyes lose focus as his mind wandered to his brother, his fate just a year away. I’d seen him drift there a few times over the course of the evening. He never brought it up, but he’d get a look, his shoulders would tighten, his breath would so-subtly catch, and he’d be silent until he could bring himself back. 

I propped up on my elbow and placed a hand on his chest, remembering something else. “You know what? I missed your birthday.”

He let out a surprised laugh. “I hadn’t even thought about it.”

I believed that. I sensed Sam’s birthday wasn’t a priority for him. Still, I prompted him. “What does one get a monster hunter for his birthday? Wooden stakes? Silver bullets?”

He turned toward me and trailed his fingers down my side. His eyes were sad. “More time,” he said softly. 

I was stricken; I had no words for that. Instead, I kissed him, soft and gentle, just to reassure him. I’d thought he might want to talk more, that his small admission was just the start of a deluge of the thoughts he’d been harboring all night. But he took the kiss as an invitation to distraction and caught my lips again, more forcefully, and rolled over me. 

We didn’t talk more that night. 

* * *

I woke up alone, morning light glowing behind the blinds, and for a second I panicked, fearing he’d gone. I got up, pulled on a pair of underwear and a long t-shirt, and padded into the kitchen. A fresh pot of coffee sat on the counter, a post-it stuck to the front of the brewer.

_ 7:05. Went for a run. Be back soon.  _

Huh. So he runs. I yawned and glanced at the clock. 7:30. I didn’t know at what point I should be worried. I poured myself a cup of coffee and started scrambling eggs for breakfast, deciding that if he wasn’t back by the time they were finished, I’d call. 

But it was only a few minutes later that I heard the door and then Sam clomping up the stairs. He came into the kitchen, chest heaving, and dropped my house key on the counter. 

“Hey,” he said, crossing to get a cup of water and planting a kiss on my cheek as he passed.

“How far did you run?” 

“About three miles,” he said, leaning against the counter. 

“Is this...a normal thing for you?”

“Yeah, usually.”

I spooned eggs onto a plate and passed it to him. “I’ll run with you sometime. Though I’ll warn you...I’m not fast.”

We moved to the table to eat. “I’m okay with that.”

We ate in silence awhile, then he asked, “You ever get lonely, living by yourself?”

I shook my head. “Not even a little. I see people all the time, but after Brandon left, I realized I liked living alone.”

He chewed his food while he mulled that over. 

“But I like having you here. You don’t take up much space.”

He raised his eyebrows, incredulous, and I laughed. “Maybe your feet dangle off the bed, but it’s easy with you. You don’t...sap my energy they way a lot of people do. Does that make sense?”

He fixed his eyes on me. “Completely.”

I flushed, held his gaze as long as I could, then glanced away under the guise of checking the clock. Sam was easy, but he bore an intensity I couldn’t quite explain. 

“So,” he said. “You decide where you’re getting that tattoo?”

* * *

I ultimately opted for my ribs, despite knowing it would hurt like a bitch. I wanted it out of sight, where no one would see it unless I wanted them too. I didn’t want to try to explain a flaming pentagram it to my family, and I didn’t want to signal anyone involved in the hunting world, demon or human alike.

But it stung worse than a hundred tiny bee stings, and Sam couldn’t seem to decide if he wanted to comfort me or tease me about it on the drive back from the tattoo shop.

“Thought you were a tough boxer.”

“Shut up,” I ground out. “It’s completely different than getting punched in the face, and you know it.” I turned into a grocery store lot and parked the car. “By the way, I’m making you and Dean dinner. As thanks.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I know. We’re also celebrating your birthday.” I walked through the store, grabbing a couple of steaks, a pre-mixed salad, and a bag of potatoes, then wandered over to grab more salt, thinking at the rate we were going, I’d need to stockpile. At some point, Sam disappeared and came back with a six-pack of beer and a cherry pie. I raised my eyebrows. 

“For Dean,” he said. “You’ll see.”

Not long after we got home, Dean knocked on the door, and I went down to open it. “Hey, Dean,” I said, stepping aside so he could pass, carrying two duffel bags, and the thought  _ one year to live _ flashed across my mind. 

“Nope,” he said, crossing the salt line and heading up the stairs. “We gotta fix that, Sammy.”

Sam stood at the top of the stairs, arms crossed, nodding. “Yeah, I know. And keeping the door locked.”

Dean stopped and turned, giving me an incredulous stare. “You’re kidding me.”

“Fix what? What’re you talking about?” I followed them up.

“The door was unlocked when I got here the other night,” Sam said. “I forgot to mention it.”

“Yeah, so you could get in, in case I fell asleep.” But as soon as I said it, I realized my stupidity. I hadn’t been worried about a robber coming into my house that night any more than I normally am, but the stakes were so much higher than petty thieves. “I’ll get you a key.”

“No,” Dean said, dropping his gear on the coffee table. “If Sam of either of us needs to get in, trust us, we won’t need a key. But if that fell into the wrong hands…”

I gaped at him.

He grinned and slapped me on the back. “Welcome to the team, sweetheart.”

Sam gave me a sympathetic half-smile, as if to both apologize for the situation and his brother, as if to say, again, “Are you sure this is worth it?”

Refusing to give him a reason to doubt me, I turned my attention to Dean, who was taking paint, salt, and books out of the bags. Sam had given me a brief rundown of the plan and it seemed simple enough—paint a few symbols, check the perimeter, set some traps—so I instead reached for one of the books.

“ _ Binsfield’s Classification of Demons?” _

“It’s a good starting place,” Sam said. He passed me another. “So is this.”

Before I could take it, Dean snatched it away. 

“Dean!”

“No, Sam. It’s Dad’s. C’mon.”

Sam’s lips pressed into a line. “She’s not gonna  _ keep _ it, Dean.”

Neither of them broke their glares. Iwatched the staring contest between them, realizing an entire silent conversation was taking place, completely understood to the two of them, utterly foreign to me. Finally, Dean glanced away, his gaze instead falling on me. I felt like he was appraising me, sizing me up, perhaps. Finally, he nodded. “But it stays with us.”

I took the book, a leather-bound ringed journal, the leather soft from years and years of hands passing over it, stuffed with photos and loose pages. It felt weighty; there was heft to it beyond its contents; I sensed I’d been handed something of great value, and I held it gingerly.

“Our dad’s journal,” Sam said, moving to stand over my shoulder as Dean surveyed the room, evaluating it for the task at hand. “Everything he learned from the time he started. And there are some good contacts in there, too.” He reached around and flipped it open, then to an address book in the back. “Rufus, Deacon, the rest of these here...keep these handy. They’re good hunters if you ever can’t reach us.”

I looked at him sharply, wondering how bad it could be that I would need to call one of these strangers, and tried not to think about it.

“Hey, Sam,” Dean called. “What are you thinking about this rug?”

We joined him in the living room. He stood with his arms crossed, scrutinizing the area rug in the center. He looked over his shoulder at me. “Sam tell you what we’re doing?”

“He gave me the basics,” I said. “Do whatever you need to do. Ideally don’t wreck the place or leave anything I have to explain to visitors.”

He flashed a grin.

They got to work, moving the furniture, flipping the area rug, grabbing the paint. I stood by, half watching with interest, asking questions about the Devil’s Trap they were painting, and half flipping through the journal, treating it like the antique books at the library, like each page was likely to turn into dust, poring through details of creatures I’d never even imagined. 

It was something of a dance, they way Sam and Dean worked together. It could have been choreographed, they were so in-sync. I’d noticed it to some degree when they’d first shown up to deal with the ghost, but now, perhaps because I knew them a little better, it was more pronounced. Dean would start for the paint and Sam would tap it closer to him almost before Dean reached for it. Sam would shift into Dean’s space and Dean would shift out, just slightly enough to give him just the room he needed. Without speaking, they moved around the rug, drawing lines and letters independently. Despite the Trap’s complexity, they hardly needed to discuss the work. It was the kind of ease that came with years of working closely with another person, of knowing all their nuances and inclinations. 

Eventually, I got up and went to start dinner, and soon the aromas of sizzling meat intermixed with the bite of paint. I heard footsteps going down the stairs, then Dean appeared in the kitchen doorway. “It smells  _ awesome _ in here.”

I grinned and nodded toward the fridge. “Beer?”

He grabbed one, opened it, and took a long drink. “We’re just about done. Paint needs to dry, and there’s a few other things to show you, but since Sam set up the salt lines already, you’re in good shape.” He tipped his bottle toward me. “How’s the ink?”

I shrugged and flipped the steaks again. “Feels like a sunburn.”

“You know this is a first for us. Setting someone up like this.”

“That’s what Sam said. Where’d he go, anyway?”

“He’s doing another trap on the doormat. A smaller one.”

The oven dinged, and I took the potatoes out to cool. “Well, tell him to hurry up. Food’s done.”

He wandered away, and I heard him calling to Sam down the stairs. I got out plates and silverware, but figured I’d let Sam and Dean serve themselves. For all I knew, Dean didn’t eat salad.

They came back in, paint streaked across Sam’s forearm, and then we were sitting down to eat, Dean making sounds of utter contentment around the too-large bite of steak in his mouth. “Don’t remember the last time we had a meal like this,” Dean said. “Damn, Sammy. Your girl can cook.”

I waved off the compliment and asked, “So, Dean, what’ve you been doing the past two days?”

He waggled his eyebrows suggestively. “Same as you two.”

I made a face. He winked, then turned to Sam. “You haven’t heard anything from Bobby, have you?”

“About what?”

Dean finished and pushed his plate away. “Anything. Demons?”

Sam shook his head. “I’ve been checking for omens, but it’s weirdly quiet.”

“Right. Well. Speaking of demons.” He pointed his fork at me. “We gotta talk about protocol.”

I looked between him and Sam. “Relating to…?”

“The door. Letting us in.”

I waited for an explanation. 

“Protected with tattoos or not, there’s always a small chance demons could still get a hold of us, use as vessels,” Sam explained. “And besides demons, there are shapeshifters too, that could look like us. Like the one that used Dean here in town a couple years back. So you have to be careful.”

“I have to be sure it’s you before you come in, basically.” They nodded. “How?”

“Holy water and silver,” Dean said. He stood up, went to the bags, and pulled out a jug of water and a knife. He set them both on the table. A rosary floated in the jug. “You can have this,” he said, “but I’ll show you how to make more in case you need it. And this,” he indicated the knife, “is real silver.”

“When one of us comes over—”

“Hell, when  _ anyone  _ comes over,” Dean interjected.

Sam rolled his eyes, but nodded. “You need to test us first. Shifters will burn when they touch silver. Demons will smoke when they come into contact with holy water. If you want to be extra careful, put some salt in a cup of water. We can touch it or drink it, whatever makes you feel safest.”

“Okay,” I said. “That’s easy with you guys, but anyone else…”

Sam shrugged. “Offer a glass of water, accidentally spill it...in all honestly, demons won’t be able to cross the salt lines anyway, so it’s just an added precaution. If someone can walk in your door, they’re probably fine.”

“Unless they’re a shifter,” Dean said, tones of resentment in his voice. 

“But,” Sam said, shooting a glare at his brother, “the likelihood of that is pretty small.”

“The likelihood of a demon making it past her front door is, too, but we still put three more traps in the apartment,” Dean pointed out. 

“Here’s a question, then,” I said. “Let’s say a demon  _ does _ get in, gets caught in one of your traps.  _ Then _ what?”

“You get the hell out,” Dean said, eyes wide as if it were a stupid question. “And call us.”

“I just leave a demon  _ in my house?! _ ”

“Well, you did it with the ghost,” Sam said. “But—and I’d rather you use this as a last resort—I can teach you an exorcism. You can use holy water as a weapon, too, if necessary.”

I leaned back and blew out a breath. “Okay,” I said. “Let’s do it.”

* * *

“Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus.”

“Ih-moon-dus.”

“That’s what I said.”  
  
“You said Ih-mun-dus. Didn’t you study Latin?”

“Yeah but no one  _ speaks _ it! You want me to translate this? No problem.”

From his spot on the couch, Dean laughed. He had his feet kicked up on the coffee table, a plate of pie balanced on his lap, watching some dumb comedy show. Sam rolled his eyes. “How long did it take  _ you  _ to memorize this, Dean?”

Dean flipped him the bird, still laughing. 

We spent a good part of the evening like that: Sam and I working on the exorcism, Dean trolling us from the couch, then coming over to add his thoughts. We set up a few holy water receptacles around the unit: by the door, on the coffee table, on my nightstand, and they showed me how to make more, copying down the incantation for that, too. Eventually, Dean got bored and found a deck of Uno cards in one of the coffee table’s drawers and dropped them on the table between Sam and me. “I’ll deal,” he said.

Each of our competitive streaks came out, shouts and laughter and curses echoing through the apartment until Sam’s phone rang and he fumbled it out of his pocket, stepping out of the room.

“Once, when we were kids,” Dean said, “I palmed all the Wild cards when I was shuffling. You should’ve seen Sam’s face every time he thought he had me.”

“You bastard,” I said, grinning. 

Sam walked back into the room, a sober expression on his face. Dean tensed, his response almost Pavlovian. “Sam?”

“That was Bobby,” he said. 

He glanced at me before looking back at his brother, and my heart sank. A phone call from Bobby could only mean one thing. 

“What’s he got?” 

“Not much. A crop failure and a cicada swarm outside of Lincoln, Nebraska. Could be demonic omens—”

“Or could just be a bad crop and a bug problem.”

“Yeah, but it’s our only lead.”

“I don’t get it,” Dean said, shaking his head. “You’d think it’d be  _ Apocalypse Now _ out there.”

“Be careful what you wish for.”

Dean slapped his cards down and stood up. “Well.”

“Can it wait?” I asked. “At least until morning?”

They looked at me, then each other. They were used to picking up at leaving at a moment’s notice, of just the two of them, making it easy to drop everything and just go. They’d never had a third party to consider before, one to leave behind.

“Yeah,” Sam said quietly, still looking at Dean. “It can wait until morning.”

Dean shrugged, patted Sam on the shoulder as he walked to his gear. He packed up a few things, leaving the books Sam was lending me, but taking John’s journal. “I’ll pick you up in the morning,” he said. He nodded at me. “Y/N, stay safe. Thanks for the food!”

I waved as he trotted down the stairs, and Sam followed him to lock the door, then came back up as I was shoving the cards back into the box. 

His hand fell on my shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he said. 

I turned into him, my arms going around his waist and my head pressing into his chest. “It isn’t your fault.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t be sorry.”

“I know this is how it has to be,” I said. “But I don’t want you to go.”

“I don’t want to, either.” He sighed, his large frame deflating. 

We stayed up as late as we could, trying to postpone the inevitable, but eventually we drifted off and then it was morning, and Dean was calling Sam to say he was on his way, and I was kissing him goodbye at the door.

“I’ll see you soon,” he promised, although neither of us knew if it were true or how many days would pass before we saw each other again. As the Impala pulled away I waved and wondered if this would ever get easier. 

It was Sunday. I worked the closing shift at the library, and wished I had more to do to occupy myself until then. As I closed the door, I saw the salt line had already been disturbed. I bent down to brush it back into place, and then had an idea. 

I went into my office and opened the closet, which had become a dumping ground for everything I didn’t have an immediate use for but wasn’t willing to part with. I dug out my grandmother’s old sewing machine and box of supplies. I’d inherited all of it when she’d passed away last November, and while I knew how to use it, most of the sewing I did was needle-and-thread mending, so it sat in storage. Now, I thought I had a use for it.

I set it up on the kitchen table, then took a tape measure and notebook and went around measuring the length of the doorways and windows, then sat down and cut scrap fabric into long strips. I folded the strips in half and sewed two sides, leaving an opening on one end. With that finished, I brought out the salt and a kitchen funnel, poured salt into the sleeves I’d made, and sewed them closed. I laid each one in front of each window and door, right next to the other salt line. They were longer, going past the actual window, but I liked the extra security. These couldn’t be blown or scuffed away.  I took a hand vacuum and cleaned up the other salt lines, satisfied with my own ingenuity.

It was just after ten. I still had another two hours before I had to get to work. I wandered the apartment, taking note of the hidden-in-plain-sight demon traps, sigils, and protection runes, and the itch of the tattoo under my shirt.

What else could I do to prepare myself? I could work on the exorcism, perfecting the verbiage, memorizing every last word. They’d left the silver knife and a solid iron crowbar, so I had a few weapons if need be, but I wanted more, wanted to know I could defend myself from anything, and for that, I needed a little more training.

I picked up the phone and called my brother. 

“Hey, what’re you doing next weekend?”

“Nothing yet, why?”  
  
“You think you could teach me how to shoot?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of the dialogue after Sam gets off the phone with Bobby is lifted from "The Magnificent Seven."
> 
> I'd love some comments if you can spare 'em! They make my entire day.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first section takes place between 3x02 ("The Kids are Alright") and 3x03 ("Born Under a Bad Sign")  
> The rest is set just before, during and after 3x04 ("Sin City").  
> I made up the case in Idaho, just because there are so many timeline gaps in Season 3.  
> Chunks of dialogue are lifted or adapted from "Sin City."

Chapter 6

“She’s a  _ demon _ ?”

“I know,” Sam said. “One of the ones we let out of the Gate.”

“And you think she can actually help you?”  
“You sound as incredulous as Dean.”

“Because everything since I’ve met you has been ‘Demons are dangerous’ and ‘Demons can’t be trusted.’ And now you’re telling me you trust one? Because she told you what you wanted to hear?”

“I’m not trusting her,” he said. “But I think we could use her.”

I leaned my head back on the couch and stared at the ceiling. I was inclined to Dean’s incredulity over Sam’s hope. “I don’t like it,” I said. Then, itching to change the subject, “Where are you guys headed?”

“Buffalo. Someone called one of my dad’s old phones, said a storage unit was broken into. We didn’t even know he  _ had  _ one, but we’re checking it out.”

“Weird.”

“Yeah. What about you? Classes wrapped for the summer, right?”

I stretched out, lying lengthwise across the couch. “Yeah. I’m doing an independent study for the summer, but that’s self-paced with a few professor meetings, so it’ll be a nice break.”

“What’re you studying?”

“Representation of demons throughout folklore and history.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Look, it counts for credit, and if I can turn saving your brother into Master’s work, I’m gonna do it.”

He laughed. It was good to hear that sound. “So what’re you going to do with all this free time?”

“I dunno. I have a ton of vacation hours saved at work, so I might use some of those and go somewhere.”

“Where would you go?”

“I guess it depends where you are at the time.”

He was suddenly solemn. “It isn’t safe.” 

“I know. I’m teasing.” It had been just over a month since he’d been here, and while I wouldn’t have _actually_ gone and met him on a hunt, the desire to do so was strong. “But I dunno. There’s good hiking in Southern Missouri, so maybe down there. Nowhere far.”  
  
“Good,” he said, sounding satisfied.

* * *

As it turned out, I did end up taking time off and meeting up with the Winchesters. In early July, I got a call from Bobby one morning on the first day of my vacation. The two of us had been in contact ever since Sam had gone missing, and we had kept up with one another as we searched through everything we could find about demon deals and Hell.  

“I got a new book in you might be interested in,” he said. “I can send it down with the boys, but I’ve got no idea when I’m gonna see them again.”

I had taken a week off with only loose plans to travel; it was nothing that couldn’t be rearranged. “You up for a visitor?”

He sounded surprised. “Well, sure. I’ve got a few other things you might like, too. What’re you thinkin?”

“I mean, I could be on the road in an hour.”

“Fine by me,” he said.

We hung up, and I darted around the apartment packing a few days’ worth of clothes. Sam and Dean were in Idaho after picking up what they thought might be a lead after the incident with the rabbit’s foot in Buffalo. I generally didn’t call or text Sam when he was in the middle of a case; I waited until he contacted me because I knew how crazy it could get, so I decided to wait until he called to tell him where I was headed.  

I wasn’t far from home when he did. 

“We just wrapped the case,” he said. “Dean wants to head to Bobby’s for a break, see if he can figure anything out with the Colt.”

“Oh, I—” I stopped myself, suddenly thrilled with the prospect of surprise. “That sounds nice. Easy case?”

“Standard haunting,” he said, sounding a little disappointed it wasn’t the lead they’d hoped.  “What’re you up to?”

“Not a lot. Looking forward to this week off.”

“That’s right. Any plans?”

I smiled, pleased with keeping a good secret. “Nah. Whatever strikes me at the time.”

“Maybe we’ll make it down.”

“That’d be nice.”

* * *

Bobby’s house was not at all what I’d expected, though if you’d asked me, I wouldn’t have been able to say what I  _ did _ expect. Certainly not a salvage yard and a modest house, cluttered but warm.

I liked him instantly, seeing through that trucker hat-clad faux gruffness. “Good to meet you,” he said, handing me a glass of water when he opened the door. “You’re about four hours ahead of the boys. I figure they don’t know you’re coming?”

I grinned, took a drink of the water, and upon passing inspection, was allowed into the house. “Nope.”

“Well, here,” he said. “You hungry? I’ve got a crockpot of pulled pork waiting for you all.”

It was just after five p.m. I helped myself to a plate and sat down across from him to eat. “So,” he said. “You’ve known Sam and Dean for what, half a year now? How’s the adjustment to the real world going?”

I shrugged. “Easier than I expected, I guess. Sometimes it’s hard to believe it’s all real.”

He snorted. “Well, that’s just ‘cause you haven’t seen enough yet.”

“How long have  _ you _ been in the business?”

He waved a hand. “Hell, feels like forever. Since before the boys were born. I helped their dad out a lot when they were younger.”

“Yeah, Sam said they spent a lot of time here.”

He nodded. “In a lot of ways it’s home base.”

I glanced around the kitchen. It was standard but for one strange detail: a line of various phones lined along one wall, each labeled with a piece of masking tape: FBI, CDC, Health Department… “So what’s with the phones?”

“Sometimes local sheriffs want to talk to a supervisor. I’m the supervisor.”

“Genius,” I said.

He shrugged. “Anyway.” He stood up, left the room, and came back with a large, ancient and dusty tome. “A hunter brought this by a couple days ago. I don’t have too much use for it, but you might.”

The title had long worn off, but upon opening it I soon realized it was, essentially, an encyclopedia of all things supernatural, from monsters to demons, gods and goddesses, spirits, creatures from folklore. It was complete with drawings and diagrams, background, maps, and more.

“Wow,” I said. “You don’t need this?”

“Kid, I could  _ write _ that. It’s yours. Learn something. You never know when you might need it.”

I was stunned. “Thank you.” 

“The rest of the library’s in here,” he said. I followed him out of the kitchen into a room made up of a desk and shelves and a couch that was mostly stacked with books. “This section here,” he said, indicating the volumes overflowing the desk, “is everything I have that might apply to Dean. ‘Course, I don’t know if we’re gonna find answers in a book.”

It was more or less what we’d been saying to one another on the phone over the past few weeks, and yet neither of us was willing to give it up. He’d been calling anyone he thought might know something, and I hadn’t stopped digging through every archive and electronic database I could.

I walked around the room, scanning the shelves. Most books were like the one he’d given me, so old and worn the titles weren’t legible. “Where did you get all of these? Some kind of black market?”

“All sorts of places. Antiques dealers, mostly. Hunters find stuff, too, pass it along.” 

I recognized texts I’d seen at the university library, listed under folklore or myth, that I now realized were entirely factual. The world expanded a little more every time I learned the truth about something, and standing amidst all of this towering knowledge, I felt incredibly unprepared to deal with any of it.

“It’s a lot to take in,” he said. “But it gets easier.”

I nodded slowly, still just staring at the books, then turned around. “Sam said you’re working on the Colt?”

He huffed and made an irritated face. “Damn thing,” he grumbled. “Can’t figure out what makes it tick or get it to even shoot straight.” He picked it up from the desk and showed it to me. “You know anything about guns?”

“I know that’s a revolver.”

He chuckled and set it back down on the table. “Well, I’m gonna work on this piece of junk. You’re free to look at anything. I haven’t started on this pile yet.” He tapped a towering stack just in front of the desk. 

I took one off the top. “Sounds like a plan.”

We passed the next few hours in companionable silence, broken only when I asked a question or Bobby let out a curse as he fidgeted with the Colt.

When we heard the Impala rumble into the yard, we both got up and went to the porch. It was just after nine p.m. and they sky was still grey with the last traces of sunlight, but the headlights cast strange shadows off the piles of car parts and rusted metal. 

The passenger door squeaked open and Sam looked up at me, surprised delight on his face. “What are you doing here?” 

“Bobby called me this morning and said he had some resources for me, so I decided to come visit. When you called me, I was already on the road, and decided to surprise you.” I walked down the steps and met him halfway and he drew me into him arms. I breathed him in, the emptiness of missing him evaporating. He ducked his head and kissed me.

“Oh, get a room,” Dean said, walking passed. I rolled my eyes at him and he grinned, shaking his head, and went up the porch. 

“I told you I’d meet you somewhere,” I said.

He grinned. “I guess Bobby’s isn’t the same as on a hunt.”

We followed Dean and Bobby into the house after he gave them the same holy water test he’d given me, and the boys dug into pulled pork and beers like they hadn’t eaten in days. 

“So what was in Idaho?” Bobby asked.

Dean rolled his eyes so hard I thought he’d go blind. “After Black Rock, you’d think Sam would want some time off. But no. Tell him, Sam.”

“I thought we had a lead, but it was just a haunting. Salt and burn, easy.”

“ _ Easy? _ ” Dean blurted. He looked at me. “There were three spirits. You know what that means?”

“Uh…”

“We had to dig not one, not two, but  _ three _ graves. And only one of us was doing the digging. And it wasn’t Sam.” He took another bite and shot a glare at Sam. “Easy...hmph.”

“Why weren’t you digging?” I asked.

“Shoulder,” he said. “I uh, got shot, in Black Rock.”

My jaw dropped. “You got  _ shot _ ?”

“It’s fine,” he said, waving his hand. “I didn’t tell you because it isn’t a big deal. It just made digging a little...painful.”

Dean snorted. “A little...the few times you did try to dig, you bitched the whole time.”

Sam made a face and Bobby chuckled at my apparent horror at this information. “You’ll get used to it, Y/N.”

“I’ll get used to gunshot wounds being normal. Okay.”

“And stab wounds and bites and home-done stitches—” Dean ticked things off on his fingers, a gleeful look on his face.

“Okay, okay!” I rubbed my head. They were professionals, they’d been doing this their entire lives. Sam placed his hand on my knee and kissed my temple. “I’m fine,” he said. “It was bad luck.”

“Fucking Bela,” Dean growled. He pushed his plate away and drained the last of his beer, then went to the fridge for another. “If I never see her again, it’ll be too soon.”

“How’s the Colt, Bobby?” Sam asked, changing the subject.

Bobby sighed. “It’s a real bitch.” He got up. “Anybody wanna watch the game?”

We did for awhile, but the boys were tired, and soon Dean was snoring on the couch and Sam and I retreated upstairs to the spare bedroom. We laid there together, Sam folded around me, silently enjoying the warmth of each other’s presence. I couldn’t sleep, but I tried, thinking Sam was asleep behind me, until he said, “You awake?”

“Yeah.”

“Wanna take a walk?”

We stepped into the darkness. It was late, near midnight, and a perfectly still, cool summer night. He took my hand and led me through the yard, weaving around old clunkers and piles of scrap until he stopped at red pickup, dropped the tailgate, and hopped up into the bed. He pulled me up afterward and we sat down, legs kicked out in front of us as we reclined against the cab.

“Wow.” Bobby lived far enough outside the city that on a clear night like this one, you could see hundreds of stars. “This beats St. Louis skies.”

“You love the city, though.”

“I do,” I said. I turned to him. “Are you really trying to romance me with stargazing right now?”

He smirked. “Maybe.” Then he was serious: “It’s not like we have a lot of chances for it. Last time I was with someone, I was living a normal life at Stanford. I’m still figuring out how to do this while on the road.”

“Do you think I care about that? Dinners and dates and whatever?”

He seemed to study me. “No, I guess not.”

I shifted beside him, putting my arms behind my head and gazing skyward once again. “What would we be doing, anyway, if you weren’t a hunter? Movie nights? Going to museums? Dinner dates?” I shrugged. “They all lose their novelty eventually. We just skipped to the part where when we’re together, we just want to be together. Comfortable.”

“I just want to do more for you.”

I rolled onto my side so I could kiss him. “You do plenty. I’d rather talk to you on the phone about nothing for two hours than sit in a dark movie theatre for the same amount of time.”

“Sometimes,” he said, sober, solemn, vulnerable, “I worry you’ll get tired of waiting for me.”

I shook my head, quickly, and put a hand on his chest. “I knew what I was signing up for. I’m never waiting for you; we’re each living our lives. Sometimes that means we’re apart for months at a time. If there’s ever a time where that changes, we’ll both be thrilled, but I’m not  _ waiting  _ for that to happen.”

“If there were someone else—”

I put a finger to his lips. “ _ Stop _ .” I moved to straddle his thighs, forcing him to look directly into his eyes. “It isn’t like that.  _ I’m _ not like that. I don’t have a plan for my future that involves getting married by X date, having kids by X age...I don’t need you to fit into a timeline. I’m with you because I like  _ you _ , not because I think you’ll fit into some made-up, white picket fence goal for my life.”

I kissed him forcefully, willing him to believe it. “You aren’t replaceable, Sam.”

He pulled me back onto his lips. “I’m glad you’re here.”

I slid to the side and curled into him, resting my head on his chest.  “Me, too.”

We stayed out there for almost an hour, until we’d both been lulled into drowsiness. I savored it. I never knew when duty would call him away from me, and while it hurt every time it happened, it made every second together that much more powerful. 

Sure enough, it was only the next afternoon that Sam found another lead. Bobby was fiddling with the Colt again, and Dean was teaching me to melt metal into bullets when Sam walked in bearing news of what could have been demonic omens in Ohio. I felt the now familiar sensation of my stomach sinking and steeled myself to say goodbye. 

“There’s gotta be a demon or two in South Beach.” Dean glanced at Bobby. “Any chance you can have that thing ready by the time we leave?”

Bobby pointed a piece of the dissected Colt at Dean. “Well, it won’t kill demons by then. But I can promise it’ll kill  _ you _ .”

“Alright,” Dean said, “C’mon. We’re wasting daylight.” He left the room to check the supplies and I looked up at Sam. 

“I’m tired of demons.”

He gave just a twitch of a smile. “Will you be here when we’re done, or are you heading home?”

I glanced at Bobby, who just shrugged and continued with the Colt. “Probably here, if you’re coming back. Or else I’ll head home. Let me know what your next move is after Ohio.”

He nodded. Dean popped his head in, bag slung over his shoulder, waiting on Sam. I got up and kissed him goodbye. “Be safe,” I said.

“Hey!” Bobby shouted after them. “You boys run into anything— _anything_ —you call me.”

* * *

“You’re just a little left,” I said, looking down the sight at Bobby’s makeshift target. We were out back two days later, Bobby attempting to get the Colt sighted in now that he’d reassembled it.

“Balls,” Bobby said. He adjusted the Colt and fired again.

“That one went right.”

“I can see it!” he snapped. “ _ You _ wanna shoot it?”

“Nice piece.”

I jumped and Bobby whirled, aiming the Colt straight down the line. A woman had appeared next to the target, blonde, fit, wearing a reddish leather jacket. 

“Who’re you?” Bobby barked. 

“It won’t stop a demon, if that’s what you think.”

“How the hell would you know?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, lifting her chin so we couldn’t miss it, they were pitch black. I was on my feet and back pedaling toward the house instantly, not stopping until I was well behind Bobby. She blinked again and her eyes went back to normal. “Call it an educated guess?”

Unlike me and my galloping heart, Bobby appeared completely unfazed. “Well, ain’t I lucky then? Found a subject for a test fire.”

I took another step back. She shot a glance at me with vague interest before turning back to Bobby. “Luck had nothing to do with it. But, hey, by all means. Take your best shot.” She stepped in front of the target, arms outstretched, waiting. 

Bobby hesitated. I started calculating how long it would take me to barricade myself in the house in case the Colt didn’t kill her and she charged us. 

She sighed in exasperation and dropped her arms. “Are you gonna stand there like a pantywaist, or are you gonna shoo—” Bobby fired. The bullet hit her in the center of the chest. She jerked with the force of it, then looked down at the hole in her shirt. 

“Ouch,” she said, sounding offended. “That smarts a little.”

“What do you want?” Bobby growled. 

“Peace on earth. A new shirt.” She took a few steps toward him. “Now ... do you want me to help you out with that gun or not?”

Bobby stared at her. I found my voice.

“You’re Ruby.”

She peered around him and squinted at me. “Do I know you?” she said, as Bobby blurted,  _ “Who? _ ”

They glanced at one another, and it would’ve been comical if the situation were different. She moved toward me and Bobby moved with her, keeping himself between us. Ruby rolled her eyes, crossed her arms, and studied me, head at a slight tilt. “I take it you know Sam.”

I bristled, her familiarity setting me on edge. She noticed and smirked. “Easy tiger, I’m not interested in him like  _ that _ .” She shrugged, met Bobby’s gaze again. “So. Gun? Help?”

Bobby stared at her, then craned his neck to look at me. “What the hell is this about?”

“It’s a long story,” she said. “Pretty boring, actually.”

“She’s been telling Sam she can help him with Dean’s deal,” I said, still frowning at her. The hair on the back of my neck was still raised, uncomfortable being so close to a demon, despite how, well,  _ human _ she seemed.

Bobby leveled a hard stare at her. There were questions he knew he’d have to leave unanswered for now, and I watched him debate with himself, wondering if the Colt were worth putting his trust, not matter how small, in a demon. Finally, he nodded. “Alright.”

Somehow, they got it working. Ruby knew a few things about its mechanics, and promised it would work, but before Bobby could make good on his plans to test that theory on her, she disappeared.

“Well,” he said, looking down at it. “I guess we wait and see.” He unloaded it and turned to go back into the house. I was sitting on the back step. “You alright?”

I wasn’t sure how to answer that. I’d stayed on the perimeter while he and Ruby had worked on the Colt, unwilling to go near her, avoiding the scrutinizing, cold stares she kept shooting in my direction. I’d studied her movements, her voice, everything: she was snarky and scathing and abrasive and could have been human. There was no way of knowing beyond the blacks of her eyes. “I’m fine.”

We went back into the house. Bobby set the Colt down and went into the kitchen. I sank into the couch, eager for word from Sam, when I heard Bobby curse. He came into the room in a hurry and I jumped up.  
  
“They’ve got themselves into somethin.’” He scrambled to toss bullets into a bag along with the Colt, then stopped and looked at me. “You ever been on a hunt before?”

I shook my head. “Then you better stay here. Watch your phone. You don’t hear from us, call Rufus. Number’s in the kitchen.”

Panic started to creep into the edge of my consciousness. “Okay,” I swallowed.

“There’s a panic room downstairs,” he said. “Brand new, anything happens, you’re safe there...but this whole house is pretty protected.” He slapped a hand on my shoulder. “You’ll be fine.” And he was out the door.

I felt like the rapid-fire chain of events had given me whiplash. I followed him into the yard. “Bobby!”

He turned, one hand on the open car door. I suddenly didn’t know what to say. I wanted to go with him, but knew I’d only slow him down. I swallowed everything back. “Be careful.” He nodded, climbed into the car, and drove off.

Normally when the boys worked cases, I was oblivious to any hiccups (as evidenced by my knowing nothing of Sam being shot). But now, knowing they were in a bind tight enough that Bobby had to step in left me pacing from room to room, unable to settle down. I told myself they were professionals, that Bobby had repaired the Colt and he’d soon be able to help them, but my stomach was in knots. 

By dinnertime, I’d worked myself up so much that I felt sick. I knew I needed a distraction. There was a small movie theater in town showing, among other things, the new  _ Transformers  _ movie, and I could think of nothing better than a mindless action movie to take my mind off of the more serious drama happening in reality. I drove into town, bought a ticket and a large popcorn, and settled in for a few hours.

It did have somewhat of the effect I’d hoped for; I couldn’t entirely forget what was happening in Ohio and kept checking my phone for any updates, but nothing came through. Still, time passed, and I even found myself enjoying the movie.

There were only a couple of cars in the lot when I walked out of the theater and not a soul around. The sun was setting as I left, a pink ridge on the horizon fading into purple and a deeper blue across the sky. There were rain clouds forming in the west, and the light burst around the edges. I paused outside the door just to gaze at it, all that beauty. 

And then, suddenly, the wind picked up and I was slammed from behind, stumbling forward. In the next half second I couldn’t see, vision obscured by a black cloud that swarmed and raged around me. I gagged as the scent of sulfur overwhelmed my senses, the taste of rotten eggs sitting heavy on my tongue. It was pitch black, thick smoke, and yet it somehow inexplicably had mass. It pressed in on all sides, compressing me, buffeting me around, and I swore I heard it screaming before it swept away, snaking up into the air and rocketing away from me across the parking lot.

I was shaking and panting, and fearing my legs might give out I sat down on the sidewalk and put my head between my knees. All I could taste was sulfur, and I spit on the ground, trying to clear it. 

_ What was that? _ I wondered, and immediately the answer came to me:  _ A demon. _

I shivered violently and felt bile rise in my throat. I fought to keep it down. I needed to get up, get back to Bobby’s, call someone.

“Are you okay?”

My head snapped up. A man was hurrying over to me from across the parking lot. I flinched and staggered to my feet, on edge and untrusting. As he drew closer, I saw he was just a kid, probably barely over seventeen, all knees and elbows with a mop of greasy blond hair. I felt myself relax somewhat.

“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, just some vertigo.”

“You need me to call someone?”

“No, I’m okay,” I said. I turned around and started inching toward the car, digging for my keys. “Thanks though, I—”

I sensed movement, looked up, and he was right in front of me, blocking my path. 

“I said I’m fine,” I repeated, more firmly. 

He grinned. “No,” he said, and blinked. His eyes shot to black. “You’re not.”

I yelped and threw my keys into his face. He shot his hand out to grab me and I ducked and angled right, taking off away from him as quickly as I could. 

I could’ve taken this 150 pound high schooler in any fight. I could have outdistanced him if it came to that. But not a demon. Pain exploded from my scalp and I was jerked backward by my hair, landing on my back. I scrambled to get up and turned my stomach right into the toe of his sneaker. Winded, dazed, the last thing I saw was the red stripe on his shoe as it flew toward my face.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**   
  


I awoke with the taste of metal in my mouth and a pounding in my head. My shoulders ached, and when I shifted my weight, pins and needles rippled down my arms.

I opened my eyes. It didn’t make much of a difference.

I was lying on my side on a concrete floor, and I was cold. My wrists were bound behind my back, and my ankles were tied together, too. A gag had been shoved into my mouth and tied tightly behind my head. My jaw ached, and I could feel blood crusted on my chin.

I wanted to spit to clear out the taste of blood but it was impossible around the gag. I could still smell the remnants of sulfur. Or maybe it was fresh, assuming I’d been brought to some kind of a demon lair.

I tried to piece together what must have happened. The smoke had come first; had it tried to possess me, and then, when it couldn’t, found the next open body and used it to grab me? Why? If it was just looking for a vessel, why come back?

I didn’t want to know that answer. I wanted out. 

My phone had been in my back pocket. I thought I could reach it. I arched my back, stretching my fingers down, everything buzzing and burning as the blood rushed into sleeping limbs. 

“Looking for this?”

I snapped back and followed the voice. I could just make out a figure in the darkness. Then, blue light bounced off the demon’s features as he flipped open my phone. It was the same one who’d grabbed me. I arched my back and wiggled my shoulders, trying to move away from him, but after only a few inches I hit a wall.

“I wouldn’t have pegged you for a hunter,” he said. His eyes were black, and the meager light from the phone cast an eerie shine in them. “But when I couldn’t get in, I knew I had to come back.”

He was sitting in a chair, I thought, and he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and sneered. “And  _ then _ I realized you knew the  _ Winchesters _ .” He flipped my phone around to show me my contacts, Sam’s information pulled up on the small screen. I closed my eyes as the light sent pain shooting through my skull. 

“Maybe I’ll wait for them to call and give them the bad news.”

Was I bait, then? A trap for them? In the span of a few hours, my worst fears had been realized: Sam and Dean in enough trouble to require backup, and me helpless at the hands of a demon. And no one knew where I was. 

Or did they? If I was bait, did that mean he’d keep me alive, as ransom?

“I think,” he said, standing up and snapping the phone shut. “I’ll just leave you here until they realize you’re gone. Could be awhile.” He put the phone in his pocket and darkness swam back over us. “Maybe I’ll get bored before then.” I heard his footsteps retreat, a hollow thunk as he ascended a set of stairs, the squeal and then slam of a door.

I was shaking. From cold, from fear, maybe from physical shock. He didn’t have a plan for me, and that scared me more than if he’d been calculated. I was completely at the mercy of whatever whim might strike him.

I strained against the bindings. I was tied with a coarse rope so tight I felt it biting into my wrists, and struggle as I might, I couldn’t seem to loosen it. I had nothing on me with which to cut it, either; I’d thrown my keys back in the lot in a blind knee-jerk response, but he would’ve taken those even if I hadn’t. 

I shouldn’t have left Bobby’s. I shouldn’t have been unarmed. But what difference would a weapon have made against a demon?

I tried to think through the panic and the cloudiness in my head. Someone would come. Sam or Dean or Bobby. Someone. 

But surely there was something in this room that could help me.

I couldn’t move well, but by staying on my side I found I could shift slightly by pulling my knees in and then turning them into the floor and pushing off, sliding on my shoulder. It would leave bruises, and it was painstakingly slow, but it at least gave me something to focus on, some semblance of hope that I might bump into some kind of tool. 

Every few jerky movements I would stop and listen, ears straining for any sound: that the demon was coming back, that some rescue was happening, but...no. It was too soon. They still had to finish the job in Ohio and drive all the way back. It couldn’t have been that long since I’d been brought down here.

They were still hours away from even realizing something was wrong. 

* * *

“Y/N’s not picking up.”

Dean flopped onto the hotel bed with a groan. “It’s late,” he said. “She’s probably asleep.”

Sam paced the length of the room and dialed again. It rang, then went to voicemail. He tossed it onto the bed with a huff.

“You wanna leave tonight?”

A part of him did. The rational part of him said that Dean was right. She usually kept her phone turned up when they were on cases so she’d hear when he called, but there were plenty of sane, normal reasons why she could have forgotten. 

“Nah,” he said. “Bobby’s is about as safe as it gets.”

Dean gave no response. Sam looked over to find him already out cold. He picked up his phone, called Y/N one more time, left a voicemail saying he was safe and that he’d call her on their way home in the morning, and climbed into bed.

He was packing the next morning when Ruby showed up. Dean and Bobby were outside; other than her brief appearance the night before, she tended to only appear when he was alone. 

He shot a glance in her direction and went back to packing. He wasn’t in the mood for her. He still hadn’t gotten ahold of Y/N, and it had him on edge. That, and he kept thinking of the night before, the satisfaction of killing two demons and the deluge of guilt that had replaced that almost instantly: he’d killed two humans, too.

He picked up the Colt and pointed it at her. “Thanks for getting this fixed,” he said. “Maybe your usefulness has run out.”

She shrugged. “Not gonna do much for Dean though.”

He felt a pang; every time he managed to forget about the days ticking away, something pulled him right back. He lowered the gun.

“That’s my boy,” she grinned. “By the way, I met your girl back in Sioux Falls. Jumpy little thing.”

Anger flared in his chest and Sam took a step toward her. “You stay away from her.”

She held her hands up defensively. “I’m not interested in  _ her _ .”

“Good,” he growled. “Now get out.”

She shrugged again, turned on her heel, and walked out. 

* * *

“Wake up!”

Something solid connected with my stomach and I lurched awake. There was a faint light over me—the phone, again—and then it was pressed against my ear.

_ “Hey, it’s me. We wrapped the job in Ohio. Heading back first thing tomorrow. Hope you’re okay—see you soon.” _

_ Sam. _ I turned my head to try to see the time, but the phone was jerked away from me. I didn’t know how much time had passed. I’d stopped my slow crawl across the room when the fire in my shoulders grew unbearable, not knowing how far I’d even managed to move. At some point, I’d fallen into an uneasy sleep. Was it night, or morning? Had he just called, or was it hours ago?

“He still has no idea,” the demon taunted. “How competent are they, anyway?”

_ More competent than one demon,  _ I thought. He was no match for Sam and Dean, especially now that the Colt was working again. But maybe there were others.

He walked away. I heard him on the stairs again. This time when he opened the door, I caught a glimpse of a clear, blue sky. So, I was in a cellar, and it was daytime. That meant I’d spent the night down here, though I didn’t know if it was morning or afternoon.

The stairs.

I turned, pointing my head in the direction he’d gone, and started scooting toward where I thought the door was. Maybe there’d be something over there I could use. Maybe I could use the corner of a step to scratch through the ropes. 

* * *

It was noon. They’d been on the road for five hours and still had another seven until they were back at Bobby’s, and Y/N’s phone had started going straight to voicemail. Sam had begun calling the landlines—all of them, one after another—in the hope that she’d answer.

Dean had picked up on his anxiety and tried to curb his own, but he’d increased his speed and kept glancing over to where Sam’s phone sat in his lap. “Anything?”

“No,” Sam said, teeth grit together. He was tapping his fingers against his thigh, shifting every thirty seconds. “Something’s wrong.”

“Yeah,” Dean agreed. “Going as fast as I can, Sammy.”

Sam sucked in a shaky breath. “If—”

“No,” Dean snapped, looking away from the road. “No. Stop thinking about it.”

Sam closed his eyes and dropped his head against the seat, feeling sick.

They saw the obvious as soon as they pulled into the yard. “Car’s gone.” Sam said.

“Okay,” Dean said. “Treat this like any other case. What’s the next step?”

Sam was already getting out, grabbing his laptop and charging into the house before Bobby had even pulled in. He had it turned on and was hacking traffic cameras in minutes. He registered Dean and Bobby scanning the house, looking for clues as he clicked through screen shot after screen shot until he caught just a glimpse of her silver Civic.

“There,” he said. “Heading into town around 6:00 yesterday. Forth and Main. Then again, Eighth and Main. What’s over there, Bobby?”

He scrunched up his brow, thinking. “A bar...couple fast food places...movie theater?”

“Let’s go.”

Bobby stayed behind on the off chance she turned up at the house or, more likely, the boys needed backup again. 

The lot at the theater was busy, but they spotted Y/N’s car after a quick circle. It was locked and untouched, seemingly waiting for her to come back out and drive away.

“So she goes to a movie,” Dean said, scanning the lot. “What happens?”

There had to be something else. Sam spun away from the car and stalked toward the theater, eyes on the ground. He reached the curb and stepped up, walked to the door and back. He would check inside, too, but not until he was satisfied out here. 

“Sam!” 

He looked up from his scrutiny of the ground. Dean was squatting in the lot a few feet away, something held between his fingers. Sam joined him and he held up a key ring. “This hers?”

Sam’s mouth went dry. He nodded. “Something grabbed her.”

“That’s a good sign,” Dean said, standing up. “Means they probably still have her.”

“Where, though?” Sam scanned the area, willing a clue to just jump out at him. He turned toward the cinema, raised his eyes to the roof, and searched along the perimeter. “There.” He pointed at the security cameras mounted on the side of the building. “Come on.”

They went inside and split up. Locating the security room was easy; most cinemas had similar layouts, and all of that sort of tech was usually kept together behind the box office. Sam slipped into the shadows near the door and Dean sauntered over to the ticket window, turning on the charm with the girl behind it.

It was busy, and that was a good thing. Sam didn’t stand out. He slipped into the back room easily, relieved to find it empty, and locked the door behind him. 

A solitary computer sat at a small corner desk. It was open to an excel sheet with the week’s schedule. Sam minimized the window, scanned the desktop for what he needed, and opened the security feed. He got a four-panel view of the outside of the building. After a few seconds of scrutiny, he clicked on the one that would give him the view he wanted. It opened to full screen, and he dragged the cursor left, watching the timestamp for yesterday evening. 

It didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for. When he did, it was obvious no one had been in the room watching the cameras when it had happened, because it would’ve raised alarm bells instantly.

Just before nine the previous evening, Y/N walked out of the movie theater. She paused at the end of the curb, looking at something in the distance. Watching the footage, Sam saw what she couldn’t: a wall of black smoke rushing at her from behind. It engulfed her completely, swirling around her for several seconds, and then blew away.

_ It had tried to possess her _ .

Y/N sat down, her head between her knees. Then, she looked up. Another figure walked into the screen: a teenager, a boy. Sam’s stomach clenched. This was it. She stood up, began walking away, and he darted in front of her. She dodged his first strike and threw her keys and ran. The demon grabbed her ponytail, yanking her off her feet, and then kicked her twice: once in the stomach, then in the head.

Sam felt sick and white-hot with rage. The demon picked her up, threw her over his shoulder, and walked off camera.

“Fuck!” Sam cursed, clicking frantically through the cameras to find another angle that could give him more. But that was it. 

Behind him, the doorknob jiggled and then someone was banging on the door. Sam closed out of the footage, replaced the spreadsheet, and opened it, barely registering the manager’s red face shouting, “Hey!” as he pushed his way out and half-jogged to the front door, waving at Dean, who was still flirting with the ticketer, as he went.

They met back at the Impala. Sam explained what he’d found, rubbing a hand down his face. “Now what?” he blurted. His mind was spinning, every conceivable, horrible possibility rushing through him. 

“Breathe, Sammy,” Dean said. “Any other case, right?”

“Don’t tell me to calm down!” Sam growled, starting to pace again, but he let out a breath and ran his hands through his hair.  _ Think _ . _ Where did he take her? _

“Lose something?”

Sam whipped around. Ruby was leaning against a minivan. 

Sam charged her, not stopping until he was inches from her face. “What do you know about this?”

She raised an eyebrow. “About  _ what? _ ”

“So this is Ruby.” Behind him, Sam heard the click of the Colt’s hammer as Dean pulled it back. “One of your demon pals grabbed his girlfriend last night. Spill.”

She shot him a look, then focused back on Sam. “I was with you last night, remember?”

“That doesn’t mean you don’t know anything.”

“I don’t know anything about your  _ girlfriend _ , Sam. I came to tell you that there’s something happening on the other side of town. Maybe it’s related.”

“Something like  _ what _ ?” he spat. 

“Get out of the way, Sammy.” Sam looked over his shoulder. Dean’s eyes were poison, filled completely with malice, the gun trained right in the middle of Ruby’s forehead.

“Demon omens, right under your nose. A whole crop dead. Farm on the other side of town.” 

Sam glared at her, turned to Dean. “It could be where he took her.”

“You’re actually listening to this crap?” Dean said. He moved to shoot, and Sam lunged at him, pushing his arm out of the way. The gun fired. When they turned around, Ruby was gone.  
“The hell was that?” Dean barked.

“She’s  _ helping _ us!” Sam snapped, giving Dean a shove. “We don’t have time for this. We’ve gotta go.” He stormed back toward the car.

“Go where, Sam? Some farm a demon told you about? How do you know it isn’t a trap?”

Sam stopped, shot him a vicious glare, and yanked open the door. “Get in the car.”

Dean replaced the Colt’s hammer and opened the driver’s door. “You don’t care if it’s a trap, do you?”

Sam said nothing.

“Hey!”

He turned to Dean, nostrils flaring. “You wanna check out this farm? Fine. We’ll go. But not until you get your head on straight. Last thing we need is you going off half-cocked and getting yourself killed. Y’hear me?”

Sam looked away, closed his eyes. He couldn’t quiet the panic raging in his blood, every minute lost a minute Y/N could be hurt or killed, and terror and guilt threatened to swallow him. It had been over twenty-four hours. Anything could’ve happened.

“Sam.”

He sighed. “Okay,” he said. “I’m good.”

Dean looked like he wasn’t sure he believed him, but he started the car and headed East. “Call Bobby,” he said. “Let him know what’s up in case something goes down.”

The farm was obvious; Ruby had been right about the crops—the whole field, which should’ve been at the height of its harvest, was brown and drooping. Down a gravel drive running alongside it was the farmhouse, windows dark.

Dean drove past it, circled back, and pulled off farther down the road, out of sight of the house. Sam jumped out before the car was parked and opened the trunk.

“Sam,” Dean warned.

“She’s in there, Dean. 

“And we’ll get her.” He handed Sam a flashlight and a flask of holy water, but held onto the Colt. Sam grabbed a shotgun, checked it was loaded with rock salt, and shut the trunk. “Slow and steady.”

They plunged into the cornfield, trailing down the row toward the house in the dark. When they were level with it, they crouched just inside the cover of the corn and watched.

There were no signs of movement within or without the house. It was dark and still. “I don’t like this,” Dean said. “You think there’d be  _ something _ .”

As soon as he said it, a light flicked on in the front room, and they watched as a hulking silhouette approached the window, twitched back the curtain, and peered out into the night.

Neither Sam nor Dean moved. The figure stepped away and the curtain fell back into place. A second silhouette appeared behind the first; they paused as if exchanging words.

“Let’s circle around back,” Sam said. Now that he was in the middle of it, a calm had swept over him, the usual steadiness that came with a hunt, and he felt focused and clear-headed. 

They shrank back into the shadows and went further, making a wide loop until they were behind the house. There was a light on in the back, too, an open window looking into a kitchen. A demon sat at the table, facing into the house, leaning forward, perhaps in conversation with the other two. It was hard to be sure without seeing his face, but Sam was fairly certain he was the same demon from the security footage.

“Look.” Sam pointed to a cellar door just below the window. 

“Yeah,” Dean said. “Okay. I’m gonna go back to the front, draw them out. You head for the cellar.”

Sam nodded, laser focused on the doors. “Be careful.”

Dean held up the Colt. “Always am.” He ducked back into the field and Sam heard the rustling as he retreated. He kept his eyes locked on the demon inside the kitchen while he listened for anything from the front of the house. 

A few minutes later, he heard three loud bangs as Dean knocked on the door. The demon inside leapt to its feet, but instead of heading to the front of the house as expected, it turned and darted to the back. Sam caught its face in the light—it  _ was _ the demon from the theater. He tensed, preparing to move, as it hurried out of the house, down the back steps, and over to the cellar. 

It paused at the cellar, unlocked a heavy padlock, then opened the doors and descended, pulling the doors shut behind it.

Sam leapt up and sprinted across the yard. He threw open the door and went down just as he heard a gunshot ring out from the front.

He turned on the flashlight as he went down, sweeping the beam across the room. It fell on a still figure on the floor just a moment before something slammed into him from behind. Sam lurched forward onto his hands, the flashlight and sawed-off skittering across the floor, beam arcing wildly before it flickered out. 

Sam twisted as a weight fell on him and hands closed around his throat. He heard a muffled shout to his right and a scrape of metal across concrete before something bumped his hip. He reached down and felt the cold weight of the flashlight, gripped it, and brought it up, hard and fast, to where he could just make out the outline of the face above him. 

The demon recoiled enough that Sam could get his legs under him and flip it backward, landing with his knee on its chest. He grabbed the flask from his pocket and splashed it liberally onto the demon, who boiled and roared. “ _ Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus.”  _ The demon wailed and writhed, and Sam dropped his entire weight onto it, chest against chest, one forearm crossing its throat. The demon bucked, smoke coughing out of its mouth, trying to escape. Sam clamped a hand over it, forcing it back in.  _ “Omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica.” _

The demon deflated. Sam felt rather than saw it as smoke was pulled from between his fingers and sank into the floor, one last lingering roar before the vessel went limp.

He picked himself up, panting from the effort, staring around in the darkness. “Y/N? Where are you?”

He heard her muffled call back and crawled toward her, relief flooding him when his hands made contact with her knees. “I’ve got you. Hold on.” He fumbled his hands up her legs to her shoulders and lifted her into a sitting position, leaning her against his chest. He found the gag and followed it with his fingers to where it was tied behind her head, undid the knot and pulled it away. 

She gasped and coughed out a sob and he held her against him. “I’m so sorry. I should’ve been there. We shouldn’t have left you, I—Are you hurt?”

He felt her shake her head. “My wrists.” He felt down her arms until he found the knot binding her hands and worked to loosen it, but the knot was secure. He’d have to cut through it. 

“Sammy?! You down there?”

A flashlight shone into the cellar, partially illuminating the space. “All clear,” he called back, and Dean started down the stairs. The light found them and then Dean swept it away, pointing it farther back so as not to blind them. 

“You both okay?”

“Think so,” Sam said. Y/N was quiet, but shivering slightly in his arms. “Bring the light over here so I can cut these ropes.”

“Do you one better.” He crouched beside them and set the flashlight on the floor, pointing it at Y/N’s hands, and took out his knife. “Hold still, Y/N,” he cautioned. He slipped the knife under the rope and began to saw through it. When the final thread snapped, Y/N’s shoulders sagged forward and she let out a gasp of pain at the quick shift in position. Sam placed his hand on her shoulder and massaged it gently as Dean moved down to her legs and cut through the ropes around her ankles.

Dean got up and walked around the cellar, bending to pick up Sam’s flashlight and shotgun and the now-empty flask. “I’m gonna pull the car around,” he said. “Think you can get her up?”

“I can walk,” Y/N muttered, muffled against Sam’s chest.

“Great,” Dean said, and Sam knew he was biting back a well-timed remark for her sake. “Here’s the light, Sam. You need it more than I do.”

“Thanks,” Sam said, taking the flashlight. He held it so Dean could see his way to the stairs, then set it down once he was out. “You sure you can stand?” he asked.

She nodded and shifted off of his lap so he could get up. He picked up the flashlight, and then Y/N took his hand and he pulled her up, but her legs, having been trapped in the same position for so long, gave out and she stumbled into him. He caught her and she leaned her weight into him. “I just need a minute,” she said. 

“Let me carry you,” he said. “At least up the stairs.”

She was too proud to like it, but she had to admit that her legs just wouldn’t hold her. Sam swept her up into a bridal carry, then set her down when they’d reached the grass at the back of the house, where he sheltered her beneath his arm as she sagged against him. When Dean pulled up, she managed the few steps to the door with Sam’s help and sank into the seat.

“Are you sure you’re not hurt?” 

She nodded as Sam slid in beside her and studied her in the dome light. A large purple bruise covered the left side of her jaw, spreading up her cheek, and dried blood was crusted on her chin. Her wrists had been chafed raw where she’d strained against the rope. As angry as it all made him, Sam was relieved to see that was the worst of the damage. She couldn’t seem to stop shivering. He took off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders.

Dean twisted in the seat and passed Y/N his own flask. “Here. Water.”

She took a long drink and then closed her eyes. “Thanks.”

Sam closed the door and pulled her back under his arm. Dean flipped off the dome light and backed down the drive. 

By the time they reached Bobby’s, enough blood was flowing back into Y/N’s limbs that she could mostly support herself into the house, but she dropped onto the couch like a stone. Sam sat on the coffee table in front of her, his hands on her knees. Bobby carefully looked over the three of them as they traipsed in, nodded when he found them in one piece, and then disappeared into the kitchen before coming back and handing Y/N a glass of water and a few ibuprofen.

She swallowed them down. “I’m okay,” she said, voice shaky, and Sam thought she was reassuring herself as much as the rest of them, as if saying it aloud would make it true. 

“You are,” Dean echoed. Sam drew strength from his solid assurance.

“How long was I down there?” 

“Just over twenty-four hours, we think,” Sam said. 

She closed her eyes. “I feel so stupid.”

“Don’t,” Dean said firmly. “It’s happened to Sam and me plenty of times.” He flashed a grin at her. 

“Yeah, like two days ago,” Sam said softly. It would’ve come out with a wry humor at any other time. She opened her eyes, meeting his, then Dean’s. 

“What happened in Ohio?”

“Fuckin’ demons,” Dean grumbled.

Her brows furrowed. “Was it a trap?”

“Not really,” Dean said. “I just kinda... _ got _ trapped.” He shrugged sheepishly.

“The demon who grabbed me wanted to use me as bait,” she said.

Sam chewed his lip.“If they were using you as bait,” he said. “They were doing a really shitty job. We never even heard from them.”

“Them?”

“Three of ‘em,” Dean said. “Guess all sorts got out of the Gate. Dumb ones included.”

“But they didn’t make threats, didn’t set a trap…” Sam shook his head. “I dunno. It’s weird.”

“Demons ain’t always about the big picture,” Bobby said. “How’d they even know you were connected to the boys, Y/N?”

“He found their contacts in my phone.” Her eyes widened. “Oh, shit! It’s still back there.”

“I’ll get it when I take care of the bodies,” Dean said. “But it sounds like they weren’t targeting you. Probably grabbed you because he figured you were a hunter when he couldn’t possess you, then thought he could use you for leverage, but didn’t know how to pull it off.”

She shivered at the memory. Sam squeezed her knee. 

“Speaking of bodies,” Bobby said. “We should probably do that sooner than later.”

Dean nodded. “Right. We’ll be back in a couple hours. You two need anything?”

Sam looked at Y/N, who shook her head. Dean gave her shoulder a reassuring pat as he passed them on his way out the door.

“What do you need right now?” Sam asked once they’d left. 

“A shower.”

He was relieved to hear more of herself in her voice. He stood and pulled her up with him. She stood still for a moment, testing her legs, and then walked to the bathroom. Sam grabbed two towels and followed her, and she didn’t protest when he got in with her and held her against him beneath the spray, massaging away dirt and blood before giving himself a quick wash while she dried off. 

When he pulled back the curtain she was sitting on the closed toilet seat, a towel wrapped around her. “I’m okay,” she said quickly, sensing his sudden concern. “Just tired.”

They went into the bedroom and changed, and as Y/N was combing the knots from her hair Sam caught a flash of her wrists again. “Let me look at that,” he said. 

She held them out to him. They were angry red and shiny. “It’s not that bad,” she said. Sam couldn’t tell if she was serious or putting on a brave face. 

“I’ll get some ointment in the medkit,” he said. “Are you hungry?”

She sat on the bed. “I just want to sleep.”

He wanted to push it. Wanted her to eat something, wanted to do something about her wrists, wanted to take back the last twenty-four hours. And he knew if he pressed the issue, she’d let him feed her and dress her wounds. But there was a look in her eyes that told him not to, that if he pushed she might break, something that went beyond exhaustion and fear, something, he thought, a little haunted. 

So he let it go. He pulled back the covers and she slid across the bed to the wall. He turned off the light and got in beside her, and she turned into him instantly. He held her close, chest-to-chest, her head beneath his chin, legs tangled together, and didn’t want to let her go.

“I’ve never been so scared in my life,” she whispered, a quiet confession captured in the safety of his solid form. “I thought I’d be more prepared when something happened.”

He kissed her temple, held her just a little more tightly. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“It could have been so much worse.” She shivered. “And that’s what terrifies me.”

“But it wasn’t,” he said, and he knew he was reassuring himself as much as her. “You’re safe.” He wanted to keep repeating it over and over, for his own sake, to know he’d made it in time, that he’d succeeded in at least getting her back with only minor injuries. “And I will do whatever it takes to keep you safe.”

“I love you.”

It had hummed out of her like it was the most natural thing in the world, like they’d been saying it the whole time. But he hadn’t heard or said those words since Jess, and it caught him mid-chest, like a bubble had expanded beneath his ribcage. He pulled back to look at her and she opened her eyes, blinking up at him, and he dove in and kissed her because, yes, he loved this girl. What else could it be, the absolute terror he’d felt, thinking he’d lost her, and the euphoria when he’d found her safe and sound? “I love you,” he echoed, and he kissed her again. “Fuck, I love you.”

* * *

I couldn’t sleep. Not really. I drifted, in-and-out of half-consciousness, just brushing against the edge of dreaming before blinking awake again. By all rights I should have been exhausted, and, truly, my body was. But my brain kept me awake, reliving the last day, inventing new, more horrifying scenarios, and when I finally managed, hours later, to sink into dreaming, I jerked myself awake, heart fluttering, unwilling to go back there.

Sam was snoring beside me and I slowly untangled myself from him and slipped out of bed. I didn’t want to be far from him; I felt safest as close to him as possible. But I was also feeling claustrophobic and thought a walk to the kitchen for some water might help.

It was almost five a.m. The stove light was on, but as I passed the living room, where I assumed Dean was asleep on the couch, I found it empty. Movement outside caught my eye and I froze, adrenaline spiking, until I recognized Dean’s silhouette sitting on the top step. 

I hesitated, then changed course and went outside. He turned when he heard me, beer bottle held lightly in his hand. “Hey.”

“Hey.” I sat beside him.

“Can’t sleep?”

I crossed my arms and rested them on my knees. “No.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Me neither.”

He had less than a year until his time was up, and I knew his sleep had to be far more troubled than mine could ever be. I fought the urge to rest my hand on his arm, to offer him some words of comfort. But I was learning, quickly, that talking about it would get me nowhere with Dean.

He held his beer out to me. I considered a moment, then took a drink and handed it back. “You okay?” he asked.

“Just...processing, I guess.”

“Nightmares?” I blinked, surprised, and he nodded. “We’ve all got ‘em. Me. Sam. Bobby. Hell, there’s not a hunter who doesn’t. Just part of the life.” 

“I’m not a hunter.”

He took another drink. “Well, you’re part of the life anyway.”

I thought about how Sam had been so adamant that they didn’t bring people into the life, how I’d told him I just wanted to help with research. We’d both convinced ourselves, falsely, that it would be fine. I chuckled.

Dean raised an eyebrow. I shrugged, leaned back on my arms. “Just thinking about how insane this all is.”

He snorted. “You’re telling me.”

I wondered if he meant hunting in general or my unexpected involvement. “Does it get easier?”

“You’re asking the wrong guy,” he said with a shrug. He took another drink and then passed me the bottle again. “But, you’re tough.”

I scoffed and took a drink, but he went on. “I mean it. Most people find out about this shit, they run in the other direction. You don’t back down.”

“I think that has less to do with me being unafraid of monsters and more to do with me liking your brother.”

“Maybe,” he mused, taking the bottle back. He finished the beer and then set it on the step. He cleared his throat. “Listen, Y/N. About Sam—”

He was cut off as the door creaked open behind us and Sam walked out. “There you are,” he said, sounding relieved. “What’re you doing out here?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” Dean and I muttered in unison. I glanced at Dean, but the seriousness had gone out of his face and he gave a barely perceptible shake of his head. Whatever he’d meant to tell me would have to wait.

Sam gave me a concerned look. “Are you okay?” 

“Yeah,” I said. He came and sat on the step beside me. He took my hand where it was resting on my thigh and folded it into his own. He was still on-edge, a little shaken, from my disappearance, and needed to touch me, to reassure himself I was there and safe. I squeezed his hand. I needed it, too.

“By the way,” Dean said. “Bobby and I got your car back, and your phone’s charging in the kitchen.”

I felt a swell of affection toward him. “Thank you.”

Despite the remnants of fear that drifted like fog at the back of my mind, I felt safe, sitting between them, close enough our shoulders almost formed an unbroken line. The two of them brought danger and horrors beyond imagination, and yet they offered so much more than darkness: they were warm and safe and solid. They felt like home. 

The silence was comfortable in the pre-dawn glow, and we sat together in the dark, looking East, waiting on the sunrise. 


End file.
